Paper Cranes
by midori Haru
Summary: Meeting, attraction, courting, commitment. For most of the world relationships form in the normal fashion from start to culmination. Naturally normal isn't enough for Sesshoumaru. And he wonders why he runs into problems trying to build a relationship from the wrong end.
1. Under the Influence

Guess I missed my readership and posting a lot faster than expected. Or it could be that I faced a rather confusing and bitter disappointment. Big Brothers and Big Sisters chose to reject me from the program because I was not "a good fit." When I asked for clarification they told me that my schedule and one failed match (that was not my fault) indicated that I would not fit with the type of families currently needing Bigs. Rejected by a volunteer organization that was original very accepting and then trying to make sure the one failed match wasn't my fault or even about me personally. Disappointing. And confusing. Le sigh.

So I'm letting this one go early.

Welcome to _Paper Cranes_. Like _Somewhat Happy Endings_, this story was spawned by a period of stress, difficulty with _Wild_ and profound irritation with certain prolific stereotypes. And Like _SHE_, one specific fic spurred me into a writing fervor. The story was _Lost Mate_ by Shellbabe. I did try to contact the author as I did Fortunesque in reference to my last fanfic, but received no reply. I debated posting back and forth for a while, but ultimately decided that, so long as I gave credit where it was due, made transparent the lack of plagiarism taking place, that posting this should be all right.

So, if you know Shellbabe or any new accounts used by the same person, please reassure him/her that I did not steal or copy and paste any part of her/his creative product.

For the same purpose, I acknowledge Rumiko Takahashi for her creative product as well, for without it Shellbabe, Fortunesque and I would have few less stories in the world.

**Under the Influence**

"Are you sure you'll be alright taking him up by yourself, Kagome-san?" Hojo called after her slightly stumbling figure. "I'm sure we can get somebody to come down and get him or something. We aren't responsible for getting them into their apartments, just to their doors."

"Hojo-kun," Kagome grumbled back at him as she braced herself to shift the large body of their latest drunken charge to a more manageable position. "He lives alone. Who's going to come down and collect him from the van?"

It was a well-known fact that playboy son of multi-billionaire Taishou Hiroyuki viciously guarded his privacy. The paparazzi had learned that lesson years ago when the heir had melted four cameras of various intruders and a hand that was still holding its camera up to the elbow. The freelance photographer had attempted to sue Taishou Sesshoumaru for medical expenses and the cost of a new camera and wound up blinded by the inu's retribution. Sesshoumaru spent a week in lock up, being a legal juvenile at the time, and the camera man lost his livelihood.

For a brief period of time nobody attempted to take personal pictures of the Taishou heir without his express permission.

Luckily, the silver inu didn't care about pictures taken in public. So his reputation as the worst sort of cad was also common knowledge. A youkai of his ilk was exceptionally prone to sleeping around and drinking and just generally making the rounds of the young and unruly.

This wasn't the first time a safe ride had been called for Taishou Sesshoumaru, college senior and public bachelor of the year. Tokyo U had seen a spike in student applications the year he'd started to attend that had nothing to do with the school's prestigious reputation. And not all of those extra applicants had been female.

Higurashi Kagome had nothing to do with that sort of thing. She'd managed to get in on a full scholarship despite the exceptionally heavy competition. And she made a point of having very little to do with the circles the esteemed Taishou frequented. Kagome was at Tokyo U for one thing. And that one thing was turning out amazingly elusive.

She was set to transfer out at the end of the semester to finish her degree overseas and this was to be her last duty night with the SafeRides program. In fact, her shift was officially over fifteen minutes ago and as such she had volunteered to lug the drunken body of Taishou Sesshoumaru up to his penthouse apartment before heading back to the house she shared closer to campus.

"Surely we can get a doorman or landlord to take him upstairs." Hojo mumbled. Hojo had been her partner on a number of these long SafeRide nights and they'd become something rather like friends. Her only problem with him was his penchant for underestimating her and wanting to step in and help her at the first sign of difficulty.

She wasn't helpless. Overcoming adversity was her only proof of achievement. Curtailing her efforts before she could either achieve her goals or fail in the attempt kept her from marking her progress and growth. She liked Hojo well enough, but he often left her feeling smothered. It had been the subject of many discussions, most of them preceded by another failed attempt to get her to agree to date him.

Kagome didn't have time for a relationship like that, and if she did, Hojo would be the last she would choose. He was too clingy, like static, and too likely to be demanding. She really was all about her studies right now.

"Why should they have to be disturbed by his irresponsible drinking habits when we're already here and I'm capable of taking care of it myself?" Kagome huffed dragging the stumbling youkai towards the door being held open by a googly-eyed doorman.

Taishou-san wasn't quite falling down drunk, which she was thankful for, but it was a near thing. Normally, this was a building where guests had to be signed in by the tenant before being allowed into the elevators, but she doubted Taishou-san had the acute motor ability required to sign anything. Luckily, the attendant a the desk was obviously aware of her cargo and capable of realizing exactly the same thing that she already had. She had no intention of staying, and if she did, it would only be to insure the illustrious Taishou-san didn't die from his own recklessness. Even so, he made the attempt to get her name for the log books. "Miss," the attendant called her over to the desk, forcing the little female to drag the male who was head and shoulders taller than her completely out of her way to the elevators. Certainly not her ideal Thursday evening. She'd rather be home studying.

"Taishou's apartment please," Kagome declared almost imperiously. She had absolutely no intention of leaving a name. The SafeRide organization discouraged this kind of involvement for a number of reasons and she wasn't inclined to leave a written record of her presence here for a number of those same reasons. A soused youkai was likely to have any of a select range of reactions upon sobering up. One was to hunt down anyone to have seen them in their unruly, vulnerable state and eliminate the witnesses. Kagome had no desire to wind up a statistic.

"Can I get a name, please?" The attendant valiantly inquired despite his increasing fright as the youkai draped over her shoulder raised his dilated eyes to glare at him. Taishou-san, top floor apartment, had a formidable temper, drunk or sober, and had gotten more than a dozen building attendants and doormen fired from their posts on the spot.

"Why do you question me?" the drunken inu demanded, speech slurred and exaggeratedly drawn out to compensate for impaired neuron activity. Or so Kagome figured. Alcohol was a depressant after all. Then again, maybe the effects on youkai mental capacity were different from those in a human brain. It certainly took more of it to leave a youkai in a drunken state than a human because of differences in the inherent metabolic rates. Either way, it was clear he hadn't realized she was there and practically holding him up on his feet.

"I was questioning the young lady, Taishou-san," the attendant answered in a slightly squeaky, terrified voice. It was career suicide not to answer Taishou Sesshoumaru whatever his sobriety level. "I need her name for the registry before she can go up according to the rules." The uniformed man was starting to shake visibly as he clung to the rules. The rules were his only lifeline at this moment as most of the building's policies were in place because of Taishou-san's exacting standards.

To the attendant's undying relief, Sesshoumaru was no longer paying attention to the weakling behind the counter, instead his focus was on the fact that there was a young woman standing under his arm. One he couldn't ever remember fucking, which at this moment, seemed incredibly important.

"Miss," the attendant rallied one last time as the terrible Taishou's gaze freed him from the terrifying scrutiny of those golden eyes. He would definitely be having nightmares tonight and no doubt all of them would feature those eyes in a starring roll. "A name?"

"SafeRide," Kagome answered bluntly with a solid look that spelled out to even the fearful attendant that there would be no other answer given.

"Surely that is not your given name," Sesshoumaru slurred in an effort to flirt.

Kagome snorted as the fumes of his ingested alcohol ghosted across her face in an unpleasant cloud. She was certainly not impressed by his drunken charm any more than she had been by his very public and sober efforts to get into the pants of their economics professor at midterms. He probably wasn't even aware that she was in that class, which wasn't a major surprise. The class had over sixty other students in it. The only thing that kept her from being completely repulsed by him was the fact she was well-aware he hadn't done it for a better grade.

Taishou Sesshoumaru was only the second best student in the class. A fact that had been established prior to his sleeping with the professor. And he did sleep with her, Kagome was certainly aware of that after she'd accidentally overheard said professor crying when he dropped her flat the next day. Toki-sensei hadn't deserved that. Good-looking, greatly sought after or not, nobody had the right to treat people the way Taishou Sesshoumaru had a tendency to.

Kagome sighed as the attendant finally buzzed her through to the elevators and she pushed the call button. Sesshoumaru continued to make passes at her as they waited for the elevator to arrive. She ignored almost all of them while pondering what classes she had to study for. Finals were officially supposed to be held next week, but Kagome had arranged to take nearly all her exams early so that she could pack up and be at her new school in time for summer classes. The only one left to make arrangements for was, coincidentally, that economics class she shared with the drunken sot leaning unnecessarily into her.

"Tell me, are you really as eager to get me curled up in my apartment and buried in you as you seem?" the lascivious inu nearly purred into her ear, his effort was arrested by a quiet burp, ruining the effect. Not that she was effected anyway.

"I'm certainly ready to drop you off on your couch before I go home," Kagome scoffed quietly to herself as the elevator car dinged open to let them on. Unfortunately, she wasn't quiet enough. She should have known better than to express her repugnance vocally where he could hear her. She may have been used to being overlooked and ignored by the majority of the crowd, but there was no excuse for letting an inu know she didn't find him appealing.

With a snarl and a sudden hard shove to the middle of her back, Kagome found herself stumbling into the metal faced interior of the elevator and right into a mist of Taishou Sesshoumaru's recently sprayed toxins. Her eyes teared on coming into contact with the mist of his making and her throat burned as her surprised gasp drew the vapor into her lungs. Her skin began to tingle as the chemical cloud began to settle over her exposed arms and shoulders making her wish she'd kept her jacket on instead of shedding it earlier in the evening.

A moment later she found herself trapped against the chilled wall of the car with a drunken youkai pressed to her front.

A slightly detached clinical compartment of her brain observed that he'd released a poison specific to inu youkai courting in effort to lower her inhibitions, making it easier to seduce her. The burn of her lungs and irritation in her eyes would shortly pass as the toxin began to really set in, shutting down her pain receptors for the rough ride ahead. It wouldn't make her decide to have sex with the inu rubbing himself bodily against her front, but it would make her exceptionally aware of the muscles moving under her hand where it splayed against his chest in a pointless effort to push him away. It would send all of her sensations to the pleasure receptors in her brain, making physical ecstasy impossibly easy to achieve. No, the chemical wouldn't make the decision for her, for no chemical could, but it would make her incredibly sensitive to external stimuli. He would guarantee that stimuli was the type to lead her directly into temptation.

Clinically observant Kagome sighed in resignation, well aware that she might as well enjoy the experience, as he was definitely going to be very persuasive about letting him have his way. Especially since his claws were already down her loose fitting jeans and rubbing her through her panties.

Sensitive, virginal Kagome gasped breathlessly as the inu pressed his hot mouth over the peak of her straining nipple trapped under her tank top. The heat of his breath transmuted into a stream of liquid need that flowed from his mouth straight to the point where his clawed hand was manipulating her previously untried pleasure button. She thrashed mindlessly against the chilly wall, whether to bring on more of his touch or lessen it, she wasn't certain. Not that it mattered, he certainly wasn't going to let her get away now.

Through it all the elevator steadily rose ever closer to the youkai's abode. The glowing indicator lights went ignored as they slowly swelled in magnitude with each passing floor.

All Kagome could focus on was the increasing desperation to reach...something.

When the elevator reached its peak, so did Kagome as the vapor and Sesshoumaru's rubbing sent her body into an explosive orgasm that set her flying higher than the elevator car would ever go.

She came back to her senses with a sharp pain only to find herself bent face first over the arm of his sofa with Sesshoumaru buried cock deep under her skin. Her body burned with the reality of unused muscles being forced aside to accommodate a previously unknown intrusion and naturally her muscles tensed up defensively as a reflex.

A displeased growl rumbled from his chest and into her body via her recently invaded core.

That suddenly detached portion of her brain figured he was displeased that she had even felt the pain of her breached hymen. But then, there was no real way for him to know she had a slight natural immunity to youkai toxins. The problem was, in his inebriated displeasure, he could overdose her. Not that she could do anything about it if he did and it certainly wouldn't kill her. But it could cause permanent brain damage, such that would make it impossible for her to feel any kind of pain at all. That kind of damage would most likely lead to a fatal situation some time in the future.

Now wasn't the time for her to worry about it as Sesshoumaru yanked a claw full of her hair around the nape of her neck and forced her head up at an awkward angle from her bent position until her back arched out in a slightly disconcerting manner due to his refusal to allow his phallus to slip out of her since he'd already managed to successfully invade her flesh. He cupped his free hand in front of her face and released another dose of his mist then abruptly shoved himself deeper into her core. As was his design, she gasped her surprise, inhaling a copious amount of this latest dose of toxin.

Then he walked her in the direction of his bedroom half determined that the little female would never feel whole unless she was wrapped around his marauding sexual organ. Had Kagome still been coherent and privy to his thoughts, she would have observed that it was this masculine pride that drove him to break so many hearts. Luckily, hers wasn't on the chopping block.

Weak sunlight was what brought Kagome round the next morning, her brain fuzzy from the lingering effects of his toxic doses and her body raw and achy with overuse. She couldn't remember exactly how he'd used her or even how much and she probably would never remember all of what happened. All she knew for sure, was that he had certainly enjoyed her. Or so she assumed since he was still buried deep between her legs, though he, and his penis, were clearly asleep. Thank goodness.

Her eyes rolled and fluttered against the painfully bright fingers of light attempting to tickle her corneas through her lids. Carefully, Kagome opened her eyes to squint at the panoramic window smudged with what she could only assume were skin oils, her skin oils. Apparently he'd had her up against the window at some point. Such a mortifying thought. Thankfully he had no near, high rise neighbors and no paparazzi photographer was crazy enough to point their cameras in any direction close to Taishou Sesshoumaru's apartment.

With what felt like a physical version of a groan, Kagome carefully eased herself off the phallic organ snugly held intimately under her skin. The move caused the sleeping inu to temporarily tense his arm around her waist before settling into a deeper sleep. The minute his arm relaxed, Kagome crawled out from under it and swiftly attempted to find her clothes.

She was more than done here, thank you.

Her tank top was a lost cause as all that remained was a mass of tattered shreds. Her bra had apparently suffered a similar fate or so she assumed when she collected the pile of mangled wire and stringy cloth. Kagome rolled her eyes. Youkai did tend to be a little rough in their sexual relations, a hold over from their animalistic instincts. Clearly this translated to torn clothing.

Kagome was only glad that she hadn't woken up bloody as opposed to just sore. The hunt for her pants lead her to the front door where she found them closed under the door of his apartment. They'd obviously barely made it out of the elevator before impatient claws tore through enough of the waist to drop them like useless debris. She was beginning to be glad Taishou-san had never had any steady lovers as his destructive tendency would soon lead them to bankruptcy replacing clothing casualties of his libido.

She hadn't a clue as to where her panties had got to, perhaps rendered unrecognizable in the inu's quest to conquer her flesh. If she hadn't been in such a hurry to get out of the place Kagome would have made a more dedicated effort to locate them as the last thing she wanted to do was leave him a way to find her by scent.

In the tiny little room that existed between his front door and the elevator, she found her jacket from the night before obviously having fallen off after being loosened in his effort to fondle the tender spot sending up white flags between her legs. Its presence saved her from borrowing any of his clothing. Tying her pants up with a makeshift belt created from the scraps of her tank top, she donned her jacket and pushed the button for the elevator.

It was as she was waiting in front of the polished doors to the elevator that she noticed the glowing mark forming on the swell of her breast. Up until that moment she'd been able to ignore her appearance in effort to forget her discomfort of having little between her naked body and the world. With no shirt and no bra, she was forced to wear her jacket and pray that nobody thought much of the fact she had it zipped all the way up. It was as she was zipping it up and checking her reflection to assure herself that she was decent that the glow caught her eye.

The glowing mark was a harbinger of doom, the end of all her plans. It was a mark of the claimed. The wealthy Taishou Sesshoumaru, heir to the vast business empire that ranked third in the country, had taken a mate. She'd always expected to read about it in the newspaper someday or to overhear her classmates lamenting the great inu tying the knot with some female – or male. Taishou-san wasn't known to be too picky about his bed partners. They were male as often as female, or so she understood. Never had she thought to be this close to the travesty.

When this little glowing tattoo became common knowledge, her life as she knew it would be over. The mate of a Taishou was expected to have little else to occupy her mind. She would be forced to attend galas and banquets. She'd have to quit school and conform to the life of a high society matron.

She could see her life's goals evaporating into thin air.

Kagome glared at the mark and growled deep in her throat. Like hell she was giving up everything she was aiming to accomplish in her life because a drunken youkai bastard couldn't be bothered to keep it in his pants and out of her life.

She would just have to prevent this little nightmare from becoming public affairs. And she could do it, damn it!

When the elevator opened to allow her escape, Kagome had a firm plan in place. The first stop of her day was a trip back to the house she shared with her good friend Sango to do a little research.

No stuck up, reckless, cold-hearted youkai was going to mess up her life. No way.


	2. The Fall Out

Back to the once a week update schedule though the day of the week might shift a bit. I've finally got enough help that I can now take two days off in a row. (Amazing!) We'll be alternating weekends though so, like this past week I worked Sat/Sun. followed by Mon/Tues. off. Then I'll have Sat/Sun off and work Mon-Sun after that. Makes for uneven work weeks, but it's better than six days a week all the time.

I'm giving fair warning, the progress in this story is going to be slow. Kagome has long term life goals that will take her places she wouldn't be able to go stuck by Sesshoumaru's side. Sesshoumaru needs to learn a bit about how to treat women beyond getting naked with them. He's not a bad guy, just emotionally stunted...there's reason for that, but that comes out later. AS always, there's lots of growth to be had on both sides because I try to avoid uneven relationships.

The eternal night owl has posted! ~mH

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from the first chapter of Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on Dokuga.

**The Fall Out**

On her ride to the ground floor, Kagome carefully purged the youkai contaminant from her body, not desiring to conceive anything from this one sexual encounter. The burn of her power working against the inner tissues of every orifice south of the border left her tingling almost pleasantly in a way she wouldn't have recognized before Taishou Sesshoumaru had seduced her. And in places she'd never desired to explore. Apparently it hadn't been enough for Taishou Sesshoumaru to conquer her in the missionary way, but he'd had to explore her rump as well.

Momentarily, her vision clouded over with the memory of her body pushed face first into the glass of his bedroom window, his fangs nibbling over her shoulder blade. Without warning her body flooded with the sensation of his semen warming her from the inside and her brain took euphoric flight with the added stimulant. When she came back down, he raked his claws over the skin just south of her left breast, raising welts where he dosed her again with his toxins. Then he withdrew his turgid length from her core allowing the reservoir of her juices and his seed to run warmly down between the upper portion of her inner thighs, causing her to shudder and moan. The moving warmth drew her attention like the bright lights en-spelled acid trippers. So focused was she on that singular sensation that it came as almost a shock when she felt him thrust deep and forcefully into her body through another avenue.

The rhythm he set soon robbed her of what little breath she'd managed to recover after the last peak he'd driven her to. Had she been even mildly coherent at the time, she'd have been pissed at his inconsiderate use of her untried and previously virginal body. He'd done nothing to prepare her body to receive his cock and ridden her as hard as if she were a woman well versed in the acrobatics of sexual intimacy. The only thing he'd done was make sure she felt whatever he did as pleasure and not pain with multiple doses of his courting mist.

It was only a few short minutes before the stimulation and the added dose of his toxin sent her careening into orgasmic space.

With a perturbed huff, she pushed aside the sudden memory in time to step out of the elevator and into the lobby. Kagome was not interested in being stuck with a male that forced her to enjoy his depravity by dosing her with chemicals instead of allowing her to feel the reality of it all. She wasn't a fan of pain, but she wasn't afraid of experiencing it. Pain was how you learned. How was she to learn what sorts of things she liked if she wasn't given a chance to experience discomfort and pain marking what she didn't like.

Not that it mattered, Kagome decided resolutely as the doorman kindly flagged down a cab for her. Being marked like this meant that no one who saw it would enter into any kind of sexcapade with her after this but the one that marked her. And there was no way in hell she was going to stick around so that he could repeat anything he'd done last night. She was no one's play thing, no one's property.

She gave the doorman a soft smile in thanks when a cab came to a rest by the curb. It was honest gratitude because, whether he knew it or not, he was helping to facilitate her escape. Kagome almost winced as she slid into the back seat of the taxi in anticipation of the pain she thought she should feel. At least she thought her bottom should be damn sore right now, she couldn't really tell. The effects of Taishou-san's toxins hadn't quite worn off yet though she'd purged all that remained of the actual demonic chemical from her body. Like a hangover, the alcohol may be gone but the dehydrated effects remained. The doorman shut the door of the cab after politely wishing her a good day.

Kagome softly told the cabbie to drive west for a couple blocks before she was willing to give him her address. The doorman was youkai, and she had no doubt that Taishou Sesshoumaru would be out to hunt her down the minute he realized she was gone and she had left wearing his mark. Youkai were possessive that way. When he finally grew desperate enough to ask for outside help, the doorman and building attendant would be the first he interrogated. She was more thankful than ever that she had refused to leave her real, actual name.

More than that, the fact she had left while marked was tantamount to declaring that she perceived Taishou Sesshoumaru unworthy to be her mate. Kagome nearly snorted, as far as she was concerned, he certainly wasn't the mate for her. Kagome wasn't interested in being a bird in the Taishou cage and she didn't need someone to save her from breaking a nail or choking on her own spit. She could sometimes save herself and that's what she was going to do.

The ride back to her house wasn't quick, the time of day left her stuck in traffic as people rushed around trying to get to work. Normally, Kagome preferred to take the bus, her budget didn't exactly allow for a lot of frivolous expenditures what with being a student and all and she was eco-conscious enough to always try and keep her carbon foot print as small as possible. But she wasn't crazy. Dressed as she was, even in the light of day, it was practically an open invitation for assault, if not full blown rape. The last thing she needed right now was for someone else to decide to take advantage of her. Even if they would probably wind up dead the moment Taishou Sesshoumaru found out about it. And he certainly would if she was delayed by that kind of attack. Surviving that sort of thing took time, more time than an inu would need to catch up with her.

Kagome shivered in the air conditioned cab as it finally pulled up outside the quaint little house she shared with her best friend Tanaka Sango and her pet firecat.

Sango was from an old, wealthy family of youkai exterminators sanctioned by the government. Her family took care of youkai who went insane and threatened the safety of human and youkai alike. As such, she had an extensive library detailing the characteristics of a number of different youkai species. Kagome, being an insomniac, often read her books late at night after her studying was finished. It was interesting stuff to know.

It was also pertinent information for someone like her, regardless of the situation she found herself in now.

Training for Exterminators was an informal affair conducted by apprenticeship within the family. Kagome was not an Exterminator. She was, however, something even more rare. Kagome was a miko.

The local belief was that miko used to be a great deal more prevalent in the human population. Many academics thought that the miko died out because they were no longer needed. Youkai and humans lived in peace these days, for the most part so they were no longer necessary for the protection of humanity against the longer-lived, more powerful race. The Exterminators provided sufficient policing against the insane.

This wasn't the entire truth, as Kagome well knew.

Youkai, as a general rule were long-lived, hardy creatures. Not much would kill them and the pain of injury didn't last very long when your healing ability erased all but fatal wounds in a few hours. So the oldest and more powerful grew insensitive to the day to day beauties and natural occurrences. In short, they grew exceedingly bored. Such ennui had lead to all sorts of illogical behavior that was originally only found in humans. To combat this issue, these youkai had cast about for something to engage them. Some waged lengthy, bloody wars over the smallest of insults. Some sought out the most dangerous quests and rarest treasures to be found. And others had pursued sex.

Adventurous sex had grown to be all the rage a few hundred years back amongst the higher youkai. And nothing was considered more delightful than adding the risk of real death to the guaranteed pleasures achieved in what the french termed "the little death".

A Few decades into what some historians termed the age of depravity, which coincidentally occurred around the same time as the Renaissance in Europe, it was discovered that miko gifted females did not necessarily lose their power upon the breach of their maidenhead. This was a revelation that occurred when a retired, married miko was attacked by a passing youkai lord and she managed to partially purify him. A number of years later, some braniac wondered what it would be like to bed a miko. Amazingly he chose to woo his miko, rather than attack her, and in so doing he learned that his lover lost much of her control in the throws of passion. The youkai came out a little singed and quite happily enraptured with the thought of doing it again non-stop for about a week before the miko lost all her control and purified him down to dust.

But it was too late then. The news was out and the possibility of dying in the act of fucking a miko was immediately voted the greatest way to die and the best experience to survive. The problem was that miko back in the day had no access to contraceptives. If she wasn't given the opportunity between rounds to purify the seed from her body and conceived, she was all but doomed to die. For Miko had exceptional difficulty in carrying and birthing young from their youkai lovers. Many died in childbirth before the youkai realized this truth.

After this truth made the rounds, a number of youkai who had surreptitiously marked their preferred miko lovers, refused to allow their miko mates to even attempt to carry their offspring, choosing instead to take youkai lovers to birth their heirs. Which, Kagome supposed, was fine so long as all involved were okay with it. What wasn't fine, at least in her mind, was that the miko were not allowed to take human lovers with which to have children too. This is what truly lead to the miko numbers dwindling. Miko bloodlines were severed by youkai amorous possession.

Only a handful of families, maybe, existed in Japan and still managed to birth miko. And training for the miko lines remained even more informal than the Exterminators. There was a large amount of literature covering the theory of manipulating reiki, but tutors were all but impossible to find. And most were only interested in it academically, because publicly, miko were considered extinct. Well, except the ones tied to youkai mates.

Kagome had trained under her Grandmother before her death, and while she was well-trained, true control often eluded her. Strong emotion generally caused her control to waver. So she had become incredibly intellectual as a form of self defense, and she only ever lived with humans, not that she was prejudiced in anyway. Humans were just less likely to sense when she dropped her guard and the place she was most likely to drop her guard was where she lived. In this way she had maintained enough control to keep from being detected and possibly enough to suppress the call of this stupid mark on her chest after she double checked a couple things.

And she would do everything she could to block it, Kagome had big plans for her life. Studying abroad was only the next step towards her goals, and nothing so frivolous as an unwanted relationship with an inconsiderate inu would get in her way.

At least it wouldn't, Kagome reminded herself after she paid the driver and hurried into the house, if she got this stupid mark business taken care of in time. All her dreams would be jeopardized if she didn't hurry up and block Taishou Sesshoumaru from finding her and ruining everything.

Kagome let herself in and quickly moved to scan through the book shelves on prominent display in the living room. Sango's personal collection lined all four walls, so it would have taken quite a bit of time if she hadn't known the general area of the one she was looking for. Finding the book she needed, Kagome pulled it from the shelf and headed to her room. Sango was aware that Kagome read her books, just not which ones, and the last thing Kagome needed was her roommate asking nosy questions as to why she would be interested in a book on canine youkai mating rituals.

Kagome couldn't very well tell the exterminator that she needed to refresh her memory on what a marking truly was so that she could best figure out how to block it. Sango would want to know first whose marking she wanted to block and second, how the hell Kagome intended to block it. It wasn't like a body could just brush make up over it and it would disappear. Marking took to the soul, the better to instill close relations between a couple.

One more thing Kagome wanted to zap Taishou-san for. Like hell she was going to take some stupid marking telling her how much she wanted to be close to that inconsiderate jerk.

Closing the door behind her, Kagome quickly skimmed over the table of contents looking for the shiroi inu section. Flipping to the indicated page, she swiftly assimilated the information before figuring out her plan of attack. The most she could do with her level of control was to set up some temporary interference. She couldn't block it completely without risking both her death and his from the shock of it, and despite how angry she was with him, she didn't want him dead. Better to let him live with the reality that he'd marked a female who didn't want him. Maybe he'd learn to treat people better.

She could keep him at bay by reapplying her noisy barrier every few days.

Yes, that would serve her purposes just fine. It would be draining, but after a while she'd build up some stamina and get used to it. For now, a shower was in order to wash the evidence of last night off her skin. Then she'd need to go start breakfast to circumvent any suspicions on the part of her roommate. Sango would expect Kagome to be awake and working on breakfast before the slayer crawled out of her bed, best to meet her expectations.

* * *

The stronger light of mid-morning was what woke Taishou Sesshoumaru from his sated sleep. His brain was fuzzy with the lingering affects of a pleasant night spent working off the alcohol with a nubile body at his disposal. Great prolonged sex was his cure-all for a hangover, and if ever it didn't work, he was too buzzed with lingering satisfaction to notice.

Of course, sex was his preferred remedy for just about everything that ever ailed him.

He smirked to himself before reaching out for the warm body he expected to find. He was thinking another round sounded absolutely called for just now. It was highly improbable that the female he'd ridden last night had woken before him given how sore he was. Strangely, all his grasping claws caught was air and cool, empty sheets. Sesshoumaru came awake quickly at the surprise. It was rare for a female to willingly leave his bed after he'd given them the honor of riding out his passions for one night.

Some women took to stalking him in hopes of another ride, but he never gave in. Or at least very rarely. The last thing he wanted was to mark some female simply because he'd gotten used to having her around.

No, Sesshoumaru gave them all one chance to entice him to mate. One tumble in the sheets, usually their own, then he dropped them before they could become a bad habit. It might surprise the world to know, but secretly the heir of Taishou Hiroyuki was a romantic. He didn't quite believe in love at first sight, but he certainly believed he could pick a mate instinctively from first fuck. So far it hadn't happened, but this morning was shaping up strangely.

With a quick glance about the room, Sesshoumaru realized he was in his own bed which was an oddity in itself. He generally never brought his conquests into his home to help prevent any clingy females from finding a way back inside. But apparently the female he'd fucked last night had been worthy of his personal silk sheets.

The next thing he noticed was the smudge of blood collected on those same sheets, evidence that he'd found himself a virgin. That was also a surprise as Sesshoumaru usually preferred his lovers to have a bit of experience in the event that he did mark them during their one night. He'd prefer his mate _know_ he was the best lover she'd ever have rather than force her to assume it. True he didn't always like the reality that someone else had sampled a female's delicacies before him, but Sesshoumaru figured the knowledge would insure his future mate would never think to displease him lest he deny her the benefit of his skillful pleasures.

The last thing he needed as the heir to a company the size of his father's was a fractious, needy mate who would demand more time away from running the company than Sesshoumaru was willing or able to give. His mate should feel privileged to have what he could and would give rather than demanding more.

Eventually, the inu rose from his bed, stretching his overused muscles as his eyes took in the smudges on the window. He stumbled a bit, feeling a little off, then dismissed it as lingering effects from a great night of sex. He'd apparently really enjoyed his partner despite her inexperience it seems. Sesshoumaru strode into his bathroom, uncaring of his nudity in front of the wide window. He'd taken care of any threats to his privacy long ago. Besides, there was no point in worrying about clothing himself until after he'd washed off the remnants of the previous night's activities. Normally there would be another body in that shower for him to take advantage of, but he liked his solo showers just as much.

It wasn't until he glanced into the steam fogged mirror after his shower that he noticed the glow. His eyes, even now, were glowing with a power he wasn't consciously using. Which meant that he was still forming a mark on someone.

Sesshoumaru blinked in surprise at the luminescence staring back at him from the slowly clearing mirror. Suddenly he was aware of a gnawing emptiness tugging at him as the reality began to dawn on him.

Last night he had mated. Somewhere between the bar where he'd gotten drunk and his apartment, he'd met a woman that was worthy of binding, one he was now bound to, and she wasn't here. His mate was not close by, not somewhere in his apartment, and most likely from the sense he was getting, not even in the building. This was unconscionable. How could there possibly be a female that didn't realize the honor of being marked by him, Taishou Sesshoumaru. Then, just as suddenly as he'd become aware of missing his mate, the tug on the other end of their bond abruptly...disappeared. He couldn't sense her clearly, couldn't even get a direction. He had no idea where she was in relation to himself.

Then it struck Sesshoumaru that he had no idea who his mate was. Her name, her position in life, even her species eluded his memory. This could not be good.

Frantically he bolted from his bathroom in search of her scent. He stopped in his bedroom where she'd spent the most time and inhaled deeply to weed through all the various smells trapped in his room. There was the scent of his cum. There was the scent of the detergent used on his sheets. There was the aroma of carpet cleaner, glass cleaner, wood cleaner, and the chemicals his dry cleaner used on his clothes. Weeding through it all he finally singled out an anomaly that wasn't altogether unfamiliar to him, but it wasn't one he knew well. It was the scent of someone he had probably only had passing contact with prior to this incident.

Her blood on his sheets was his strongest ally, it was his starting point. Swiftly, Sesshoumaru dressed before picking up the trail that lead out to the living room where he found the scraps that were left of her panties tucked under the end of the couch.

A flash of memory, bending a dark haired, petite beauty over the arm to find his pleasure let him know he was looking for a semi-short, brunette woman who hadn't known the touch of a male before him. The trail then lead him out to the elevator. There was only one that came all the way to his floor, so her scent was extremely prevalent inside the car when he stepped aboard. As was the faint scent of his toxins.

Sesshoumaru closed his eyes with a groan. He'd dosed the woman, seduced her chemically which meant that even before he'd laid a hand on her Sesshoumaru had intended to mark her. It also told him, she'd been more than slightly reluctant. He had never before had to resort to his courting toxins with a woman. Many hadn't even required he chat them up before falling onto his dick.

Any woman that required more effort easily fell to his skill with words, heated glances and strategic caresses. And when any of the above failed him prior to this the target in question had been dropped so he could move on to more agreeable prey. If he was bored and looking for a challenge, Sesshoumaru had been known to allow a seduction to stretch out over the course of several days.

That he was so impatient as to resort to the mist when words, glances and touch failed him belied an impatience for his mystery mate that was incredibly uncharacteristic of him. An impatience he was certain had made his mate exceptionally unhappy with him. Hell, S_esshoumaru _wasn't too happy he'd dosed her, either.

He'd always felt that dosing was an unfair advantage in the game of carnal give and take. Besides, using it made the victory of a successful seduction meaningless. It was more satisfying to overcome a cognizant, fully-aware will rather than simply taking advantage of a chemical haze.

But his preferences and her happiness aside, Sesshoumaru had mated the woman and he _would_ find her. Instinct and pride demanded it. Something about the woman had appealed to him so much he'd resorted to the mist and there was no way he was going to let something like that go. When he did find her, he would prove to her that he was more than worthy and the best possible mate she would ever have. Because she certainly couldn't find another wearing his mark.


	3. Courtesy Phone

The title of this story came to me after I'd written a number of chapters first. Sometimes it happens that way. Other times, a title his me and it fits a story closely right from the start. You don't know how appropriate papers cranes are for this story is yet. But you're getting there.

Sesshoumaru finally gets to know just what kind of problems he's bought himself by marking a woman like Kagome without her permission. It's one thing to allow a one night seduction, another entirely to be locked into a lifetime commitment to someone you only know in a peripheral way.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from the first chapter of Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on Dokuga.

**Courtesy Phone**

A few days later, Kagome rested her arms above her head to help stretch out her back after her last final exam. It had proven a bit more difficult to focus on her exams while maintaining the required concentration she needed to hold her barriers in place. And that last test had been a bit more difficult that she'd expected. Not "panic, I failed" difficult but still a bit more challenging than the midterm had taught her to expect. Then again, Toki-sensei hadn't been dumped by Taishou-san prior to midterms.

As much as Kagome hated to infer that her professor had been a bit sadistic in preparing the exams, she had a feeling a number of students in good standing were about to fail the whole class with this last exam. Not everybody was an insomniac like Kagome and could study while holding two level eight barriers.

And Kagome had to hold up two of them for the last few days.

It hadn't occurred to her until after she stepped out of her shower and encountered Sango's hissing firecat, Kirara, that simply bathing would not protect her from an inu nose. It just wasn't possible. Even if she had managed to remove absolutely every last remnant of his scent from her body, there was no way he wouldn't make a point of taking note of her personal scent. She was his marked mate, smelling like him or not, he would still be on the look out for her.

She had to face the very real possibility that they would encounter each other at some point. They went to the same school after all. It may have been a large campus and they may not have any classes left together, but there was always a chance that Taishou Sesshoumaru would think to check the campus for his missing mate. Kagome had signed into his building as a SafeRide after all.

SafeRide was a student run organization, staffed by other students for the purpose of seeing students safely back to their homes after they'd partied too hard. It wasn't too much of a leap for him to surmise that his mate would therefore have to be a student at the same university. Whether said student turned out to be one of the staff or just a fellow drunk. Taishou-san had no way of knowing and SafeRide would never give out any of the names of its staff.

Statistics were Kagome's best friends, because despite the Taishou money and the amount of political pressure her would-be mate could press on the organization, nobody would talk. Especially not when it was her they'd be giving up. Too many of her fellow staffers owed her one for taking over shifts or just generally having their back.

Kagome could have cackled with glee over it if she wasn't on a public sidewalk. Instead she just snorted, lowered her arms and continued to walk home in the warm sunlight.

Just a few more days and Kagome would be far beyond the reach of his search. If he thought she was a needle in a hay stack in Tokyo, just wait until he had to find her somewhere in the world.

That thought caused her to pause. She didn't really hate Taishou Sesshoumaru despite the tough spot he'd nearly put her in. A few days to get over it had let her cool down a bit and think. And while she still wasn't crazy enough to help him find her, she was aware of just how expensive and time-consuming a man hunt could be. The price increased exponentially when the whole effort was being kept out of the press.

Of course, she was assuming that Taishou-san had involved outsiders in his search by now.

Sango's book had said that inu were exceptionally possessive and attached to their mates once marked, which meant her inu was most likely desperate to find her by now. If nothing else, Taishou-san had probably taken the news to his father who was, Kagome suspected, the alpha of their pack until such time as Taishou Sesshoumaru either defeated him in open combat or left to form his own pack. Which could always be a pack of one, but he spent too much time around Taishou Hiroyuki and the others of his birth pack to have chosen the latter. And the papers would have most certainly delighted in the event of the former.

Either way, Kagome supposed, it would be inconsiderate of her to leave the country without letting Taishou Sesshoumaru know she wasn't around to be found any more. Just because he was an inconsiderate jerk, didn't mean she had to be the same. Her mama had raised her better.

Kagome nodded sharply to herself before entering the next shop likely to have those little pay as you go cells on sale. She picked up two of them before heading to the post office to pick up a box for one of them before heading home.

Once at the house, Kagome activated both phones, programed each number into the opposite phone before stuffing one into the box she'd picked up. After taping it shut and addressing it to Taishou-san's apartment, she returned to the post office and express mailed it, one day delivery. When he called her, Kagome would tell him and then she would discard the phone...or maybe not. She would simply have to see.

* * *

Sesshoumaru's eyes were blood shot. His efforts to find his mysterious, missing mate were proving fruitless.

The woman's scent ended at the curb outside his building. His first lead on her a dead end no more than twenty feet from the front door where his ever helpful doorman had helped her into a cab. The inu had been required to take a handful of deep calming breaths before he could think past the frustrating desolation caused by his inability to hunt down his mate quickly and on his own. Fine.

Sesshoumaru had then retreated to the lobby. His closest resource was the attendant logs, the security tapes, and the staff on duty when he and his lover arrived. Or at least, they would have been had the lady supplied an actual name to the attendant. "SafeRide" indeed. And while it told him that his lady was another student, it didn't tell him whether the female in question was a fellow passenger or a staffer. And he well knew the SafeRide group wasn't going to give him a name. Knew it without having to ask.

The security tapes had proven slightly more helpful in that he now had a full, grainy image to go off of, the sort that was frustratingly ambiguous. She was young, as if being a student hadn't already told him that. She was shorter than him, as he already knew. But her exact height was masked by the fact she was partially carrying his drunken weight. Hell, his draped body blocked nearly all the cameras from getting a clear shot of the woman from any direction so he still didn't know her species or anything else about her beyond being dark haired.

Eventually he found the tapes in which she made her exit. She was only recognizable by her damaged jeans, her tennis shoes, and the jacket previously tied around her waist, now worn zipped up tight to her chin to cover for her clothing casualties of the night.

Sesshoumaru was not a youkai who was easy on women's clothing.

In some shots, he could just make out the glow of his forming mark. The lobby camera watched her out the door where the exterior one picked her up. When Sesshoumaru questioned the doorman on duty, he'd been informed that his lady had only directed her driver to head west before she'd made it beyond the doorman's hearing.

His female was proving uncommonly clever. Clearly the female had intentionally held off giving her driver more than general directions for the express purpose of securing her escape. And her efforts had been successful.

A Taxi in this city sometimes moved hundreds of people, and were he to some how track down the exact cab that picked up a young woman from his building that morning, there was no way for him to force the driver to answer his queries about where he dropped her unless he could prove himself a member of law enforcement or next of kin. Newly mated simply wouldn't cut it. And cabs didn't bother logging the names of their passengers if they paid in cash.

Thus, he'd hit his second dead end. Which meant he had to tell his father.

Sesshoumaru had been reluctant to inform his father he'd taken a mate without the woman actually being present for the announcement.

There was more than one reason Sesshoumaru got drunk and slept around so much. Upon graduating from high school prior to starting college, his illustrious father had informed him that as soon as Sesshoumaru graduated from Tokyo University, a mating would be arranged for him.

In many things, Sesshoumaru was willing to go along with the plans of his sire, but not in this. Sesshoumaru had no real desire to mate so young, but he didn't really desire to break irrevocably from his pack. Taishou Hiroyuki had made it very clear that if Sesshoumaru didn't mate as his sire directed post graduation, he may as well assume himself without a pack. The Taishou Patriarch had delivered unto his loyal, dutiful eldest an ultimatum.

Sesshoumaru chaffed under this unreasonable treatment. He hadn't wanted to go into business, finding it boring and full of empty competition with weak fools who had an unhealthy propensity to widen about the middle while all the time seeking to increase the power of their wallets. Playing against such cretins was far too easy, but his father had needed an heir for his financial empire.

Sesshoumaru would have preferred to complete his college education abroad, someplace the Taishou name wouldn't have drawn so much unneeded attention. But his sire had desired to begin introducing the next owner to his business associates, so he went to Tokyo U instead. He hadn't even applied to any other schools. And still his father had chosen to reward Sesshoumaru's compliance and support thus.

To go against his father directly would result in the same consequences as simply refusing to mate. He would either be without a pack altogether, including the inheritance that went with it, or he would assume the responsibilities of the company immediately after violently defeating his father in combat. Neither of which appealed to him. He was not an inu who would do well completely cut off from other inu.

There was enough tactician in him to realize a more subtle approach would have to be used. Sesshoumaru simply would not allow his father to win in this instance. And the only way to win without being disowned was to mark a one night stand when he wasn't in control of himself.

Sure he could date, if he wanted. But if he turned up at his father's house with a marked woman he'd been courting, his dear sire would not have believed it was by accident.

Sesshoumaru supposed he could perhaps befriend a woman prior to sleeping with her, but that was just as risky as dating someone. Any woman he spent a significant amount of time with would shortly become the purview of his father.

He risked choosing unwisely, but he didn't worry.

He was inu. He had instinct to guide him. And he'd trust his instinct to fish him out something good and if it didn't, well at least it was his own choice he'd be lamenting and not one his father had foisted upon him.

Sesshoumaru wouldn't mind being miserable as long as he was miserable on his own terms.

His plan had apparently succeeded. He had marked his mate without his father's interference. Unfortunately, his plan had also gotten him into this situation where he was without his mate, incapable of marking another and forced to go to his father to ask for aid. And he didn't even know if she was worth it.

Well, she was certainly worth it for inu once mated needed to be close to their mates, but he wasn't sure if she was _worth it_ as a person. He didn't know enough about her to make such a judgment.

The discussion with his father hadn't been as unpleasant as first imagined. The head Taishou wasn't as furious about the announcement that he had taken a mate as Sesshoumaru had expected. In fact, the older inu had merely sighed before congratulating him. Sure sign that his well publicized womanizing ways had prepared his sire for such news. It was the news that his marked mate had left him that had brought on Hiroyuki's immense displeasure.

"She would dare declare you unworthy?" Hiroyuki snarled irately. Apparently his father was more insulted about Sesshoumaru's mate abandoning his side than he was.

"Keh, probably didn't realize what a prick he was before hand," his ornery half-breed, half-brother scoffed with disinterest. Sesshoumaru growled pointedly in response. "Please, don't act like you're the gods gift to women everywhere. A lot of girls wouldn't want you for a mate. Your habits are very public. Who would want to be mated to some guy who would likely cheat on her often?"

"This Sesshoumaru would never dishonor his mate," Sesshoumaru rumbled pointedly.

"Does she know that?" Inuyasha asked, bringing him up short. "Did you take the time to assure her of that before you slept with her?"

"Inuyasha, desist," the elder inu pinched the bridge of his nose wearily. "You should not taunt your brother over this. This is far too serious." Inuyasha shrugged off his father's reprimand with an irreverent "keh". "Now then, Sesshoumaru, what do you need?"

"I have exhausted all possible resources at my immediate disposal in attempts to locate her," Sesshoumaru answered. "She did not leave a name with the attendant other than that she was brought there by a SafeRide van when they dropped me off. She did not utter directions to her cab driver other than to drive west within hearing range of the doorman. The security videos offer images that are grainy at best. Neither of the attendants last night or this morning remembered her well enough to give me a more solid description of her person beyond that she was female, dark-haired, and determined. I was able to sense her direction briefly upon first waking, but it has since become extremely muffled and difficult to discern."

"You don't even know her name?" Inuyasha blew-up in his incredulous humor. "What did you do? Just claw her out of her clothes and drop your dick inside her pussy?" His answer was a fierce love tap that left the hanyou rubbing at his jaw on the floor.

"You are speaking of his mate Inuyasha, try not to be so crude," Hiroyuki scolded his youngest absently. "Well, we know she's likely a student at your school, and that she hasn't already been prey to your womanizing prior to this."

"Keh, that'll narrow down the field a bit, but not much," Inuyasha mumbled.

"We also know that she likely was a staffer for that organization," Hiroyuki added "as it is unlikely a fellow drunk would have thought to give that name to the attendant. We have images of this woman, granted not the best, but it is a start. I'll call my assistant and get her to contact a private detective I've had success with in the past. We'll see what that digs up. In the meantime, Sesshoumaru, you need to scout out your campus. Who knows, luck may find you and allow you to find her. And I will contact the local exterminators and see who would be helping your lady block the bond. There are very few others who would know how."

"I'll ask Miroku and Sango if they know who was on duty for SafeRide last night," Inuyasha offered. "It likely won't amount to much, but it's worth a try."

Sesshoumaru had merely nodded despite his reluctance to follow through with his part of the plan. It was likely that his female would soon leave the city after finals were completed, whether she did this to evade him or simply follow through on her original plans wouldn't matter as it wasn't blatantly unusual behavior that anyone would comment on this time of year. Without a name, once she left the city, they would have no way of finding her again. Time was running out.

As his father had suggested Sesshoumaru was better off searching around the one place he knew they had in common than closeting himself up in his apartment even if all he wanted to do was steal away to wallow in the last vestiges of her scent available in his apartment. Besides, he had final exams to take. Life doesn't just stop because the bottom fell out of his world.

"Hey, Sesshoumaru," the hanyou called to him as Sesshoumaru made his way back to his car. His first two exams were over, and the day was getting on. Already the normally crowded lot was fast emptying as students who had finished their exams for the day had already left. "Wait up!"

Despite his first inclination, the two brothers were not close after all, Sesshoumaru stopped and turned to the annoying half breed. "Inuyasha," he acknowledged woodenly. He just wasn't in the mood to perpetuate their standing animosity to its normal degree.

Inuyasha shuddered noticeably but did not fail to continue, "SafeRide's turned out to be a bit of a dead end." He shrugged apologetically, "Miroku doesn't normally work on Thursdays as a general rule since he's had that one evening class and Sango's regular schedule changed since she's been on call in place of her brother. You know he's been in the hospital since that big bust went south a ways back. And when she's not on call she's down at the hospital holding his hand in the evenings." The younger inu shook his head and returned to the pertinent information, "As far as they know, none of the regulars have suddenly stopped helping out or made plans to leave the country, though many already had such plans in place this time of the year anyway."

"This Sesshoumaru is aware," he nodded his appreciation for the somewhat useless effort Inuyasha had put forth on his behalf, unsurprised by the results. His mate could have left him because she'd already had plans to leave. He just wish he knew.

"Keh, ungrateful bastard," Inuyasha sighed and watched him leave.

Sesshoumaru drove mechanically back to his building pondering the trappings of fate and his own plan that had landed him in this predicament. It was insulting to have been left behind, it was maddening not to know why, but most of all it was disheartening to know he couldn't fix this one mistake. There was no way to take back a mark even if it wasn't communicating properly.

He parked in his space in the basement before bypassing the elevator so he could take the stairs up to the lobby. It had become a habit since she'd disappeared to stop by and see if she'd attempted to return. The attendant was given firm instructions to inform him at the first opportunity should such a thing come to pass.

Normally the attendant would glance up at him and shake her head to inform him that there was nothing to report. Today, despite the line up of guests and other tenants swamping the uniformed woman, she flagged him over. A package had arrived baring no return address.

Sesshoumaru sniffed the container carefully as he rode the crowded elevator patiently as it slowly emptied out before it reached the top floor. Determining that whatever it contained was harmless enough, he carefully shuffled it and his book bag until he unlocked his front door and let himself in. Without a second thought, Sesshoumaru dropped the bag and tore into the brown box with his claws, releasing a powerful, cleansing breath of scent that headed straight to his memory and relaxed all the tense muscles in his body. Next, he carefully extracted the small electronic device nestled inside the cardboard and paper. It was a phone.

Sesshoumaru accessed the contact menu to find one number programmed into the device that hadn't been put there by the manufacturer. With a fortifying breath, Sesshoumaru highlighted the number and hit send before bringing the phone up to his ear.

It rang twice before the call was picked up.

"Hello, Taishou-san," a calm female voice answered.

"Mate," Sesshoumaru growled suddenly relieved despite the fact she wasn't actually with him. "Have you come to your senses and chosen to return to this Sesshoumaru?"

The woman snorted, "This is merely a courtesy call. I thought I might save you and your family some time and money by telling you I'm leaving the country in the next few days."

"You would go so far to runaway?" Sesshoumaru was a bit confused by all the feelings her words invoked.

"Don't flatter yourself, Taishou-san -"

"I have been more intimate with you than any other person, mate," Sesshoumaru grumbled, her formal reference to himself irritated him greatly. "My name is Sesshoumaru."

"Physical intimacy does not necessitate familiarity, Taishou-san. You do not know me, we have no relationship," the female pointed out firmly. "You, yourself, are more than aware of this as none of your former conquests have been granted such an honor."

"You are more than any of them were," Sesshoumaru argued.

"Wrong," she rebuffed him shortly. "The only difference between them and me is that you were crazy enough to mark this stranger rather than any who went before me." She sighed, the sound rushing against his ear almost as if she were right there to blow on it. "This was not what I wanted to talk about. I am leaving the country in a few days."

"Am I so unworthy in your eyes?" he demanded. Surely she didn't know just what her leaving him meant.

"You are not what I would have chosen to be my life partner," she informed him bluntly and his mind reeled. "You are so far from what I was looking for you can't even understand how you don't fit what I want, Taishou-san. "

Sesshoumaru blinked, "How would you know?"

"If you were anywhere near what I would chose, what I would deem worthy, you would have known not to mark me because I was leaving and no stupid mark would ever hold me back," her reply was quick and pointed. "I will not give up my goals, my dreams to live in the prison you would set me in."

"How is being my mate holding you prisoner?"

"Were I to stand as your mate, I would be forced to live my life by your whims, base my pleasures and projects around your schedule, attending to events as you wish, correct?" she asked him. "How is that unlike living in a prison? I have fought too hard and accomplished too much to give it all up and live like a bird in a cage."

"I suppose you feel I should live by your schedule instead," Sesshoumaru scoffed.

"No," she refuted his sarcastic observation. "The fact that you can't see a relationship in any other way than one being in control of the other, shows me that we would never be compatible. I don't want to rule over anybody's life and I refuse to let somebody else rule mine, Taishou-san."

His displeased growl went ignored. "What would you want in a mate that you think this Sesshoumaru is incapable of?"

"Why, so you can pretend to fulfill my requirements and con me into giving you a shot?" she laughed in amusement. "Weren't you listening? Even if you fulfilled my wishes, I would still be leaving the country at the appointed time. I don't _need_ a life partner right now, and thanks to you, I'll never have the option of finding one to fit my pleasure." She chuckled mirthlessly. "It would have been nice to develop a real relationship."

"We have a relationship, mate."

"We have a youkai too impatient to use his phallus to wait to find out who he's using it on," she snapped. "You don't even know my name. One has to wonder how many of the others you failed to do the same courtesy. How many others have you dosed to get your way?"

"Just you," Sesshoumaru admitted guiltily.

"Well, aren't I just special," she sniffed. "I tire of this pointless conversation. I have more packing to do before I go spend the last of my time with my family before my flight. You won't find me, stop wasting your money and your time. That was all I wanted to say, because, despite your inconsiderate behavior, my mother taught me to always be courteous."

"Wait," Sesshoumaru demanded.

"Yes, Taishou-san," she answered wearily.

"What is your name?"

"You can't honestly be asking me to help you track me down, I'm not that stupid," she rebuffed his request. "As it is I'll most likely toss this phone after we're done here. You're welcome to track it, it's brand new, prepaid and bought with cash. And the information I provided when activating both phones leads back to you. Feel free to keep and use yours. The bill will be sent to you as you use it."

"Wait!" Sesshoumaru panicked. If she got rid of her phone, he lost his only way to contact his mate.

"What is it now, Taishou-san?" she sighed.

"Don't get rid of the phone," He all but begged.

"Why so you can track me with it?" she scoffed.

"Please don't get rid of the phone," he really did beg, on his knees in his empty apartment.

He heard her sigh again and hoped it meant she was relenting. "Fine, I'll keep it, but the moment you attempt to use it to find me I'll vanish and leave it behind. And you're paying for it. The bill will be sent to you, it will be expensive as foreign rates can get ridiculously high, that's _if_ it even works where I'm going."

"If it doesn't, get a new one and send the bill to this Sesshoumaru," he agreed.

"Taishou-san, don't make me regret this," she warned him before hanging up.


	4. Hanging On

This tale is probably going to be my most widely traveled. But not for a while. No first we've got to disabuse Sesshoumaru of a few stereotypical notions concerning women and what they want from life. It's not completely his fault that he relies on those prolific presuppositions and mis-generalizations made about females in general. He's not very social. Never spent time with a woman who wasn't a teacher or a one-night stand (barring stalkers of course). Experience hasn't been able to teach him better yet. Not until Kagome, raging independent, goal-oriented creature that she is! He'll learn.

It's surprising to me how many people discover a story only after it's finished. It's been fun receiving all the story favorites for SHE in the last couple weeks. I've even received more reviews for it than I have the current fic. Strange that!

Just a heads up (since I've received a lot more of them this time around) reviews that aren't signed in are hard to respond to. If you ask a question, I'd rather address it to you directly. If you review while signed in with more than a demand for more, I will respond. It's more respectful that way. You took time out of your day to read my work and then review it (big step that), I can take the time to respond. I think there's not enough respect in the world today. (self-respect or respect of others, a lot of bad and offensive behavior stems from a basic lack of respect really...cheating in a relationship for example). But that's just my opinion.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from the first chapter of Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on Dokuga.

**Hanging On**

Sesshoumaru woke up abruptly, his body aching and his breath coming fast and shallow, his heart rapidly pounding a hectic rhythm in his chest.

With a deep, steadying breath, he blinked the sleep and dream fragments from his weary, amber eyes before sitting up and running a deadly claw through his silver hair. Slipping from the sheets, he raised his fatigued body from the bed and wandered into the bathroom to splash some cool water over his face.

The dream that had awoken him wasn't really a surprise.

Prior to marking his mate, Sesshoumaru had developed a regular schedule of sexual encounters where, while the partners were never the same, the result was. In essence, he'd gotten used to a steady diet of carnal activity.

Now that he'd mated and was currently refusing to sleep with anyone but his mate, Sesshoumaru was suffering from withdrawals.

Oh the absurdity of it all.

Sesshoumaru stared at his dripping reflection in the dim light that was spilling in through the picture window that still held the smudges of her skin. He had always scoffed at the idea that anyone could be addicted to sex enough to suffer from going suddenly cold turkey. But there he was.

His nights since being left by the woman he still didn't have a name for had been disturbed by what amounted to little more than wet dreams. Or rather, _almost_ wet dreams. His body forced itself awake before he could achieve physical release and he was beginning to wonder whether the indignity of climaxing in his sleep was worse than trying to find a way to orgasm after he'd woken up.

Because he'd yet to find a way to achieve orgasm after regaining consciousness.

Sesshoumaru had been afforded a great deal of time to think about it since he never regained a state of slumber once he awoke. It was his thought that the reason he couldn't achieve his release either in the dream or after waking was because she wasn't there. Because she was somewhere beyond his reach and getting further away.

With a sigh, he patted his face dry, debating the efficacy of a cold shower, before dismissing the notion and returning to sit on his bed with a tired breath.

Sesshoumaru had never pondered what would happen to him if he chose wrongly when he marked a mate. Certainly he'd been prepared to deal with a spoiled, demanding female. He'd anticipated arguing and anger, frustration and general upset. He'd almost been certain there would have been a period of rough relations between him and the female chosen as mate as they learned to deal with each other.

He had never once imagined he would be abandoned. But he should have when he'd recently gotten pickier, changing the type of targets he pursued. He'd even seduced one of his professors, and that had never been his type before.

Sesshoumaru had thought he was simply eager for more challenging prey. He should have known it meant something more than that. And his mate had proven to be more along the intellectual type he'd pursued in recent months than the usual fodder of years previous.

He could only surmise that he'd sensed her or encountered her in passing in the last few months and instinctively directed his efforts to women that were of a similar type.

All he had were suspicions, but Sesshoumaru was beginning to think she'd been in at least one of his classes this last semester.

Suspicions and retrospect certainly didn't help his current predicament.

What he wanted was to track down his mate, strip her bare, and get reacquainted with her body. But that wasn't an option as the female in question wanted little to nothing to do with him. He had negligible doubt that part of her reasons for leaving him was because she was aware that he had done hardly anything but use women to sate his pleasures.

It wouldn't have mattered to him before this, except his mate was a woman too. Something he had stupidly failed to take into account when he'd gone about his plan to take the decision of his mating from his sire.

He'd always assumed that so long as she pleased him and he pleased her on that first night the rest would work itself out.

Of course, there was always the possibility he hadn't pleased her.

The very thought of it had him reaching for the phone he'd received the day before and pushing the send button.

"What is it Taishou-san?" Her voice seemed weary and slightly annoyed.

It was only then that it occurred to Sesshoumaru to consider the fact his room was flooded with moon and starlight rather than sun and the glowing numbers of the clock on his nightstand indicated an ungodly hour of early morn. If he was trying to mend his bridges and persuade his mate to actually return to him and _be_ his mate, waking her at the crack of dawn was not the way to go about it. "I should have made note of the time," he sighed unable to regret the call in any case. "Did I wake you?"

"Lucky for you, Taishou-san, I'm an insomniac," she answered absently. "When I do achieve the blissful somnolent state, I make very certain nothing electronic will interrupt what little rest I can manage to acquire. I do not sleep long as is, no need to shorten it needlessly."

"Why do you not sleep?"

"Unexplained mystery," She replied dismissively. "Are you well Taishou-san?"

"I-" Sesshoumaru began then thought better of it.

"Yes, Taishou-san?" the voice of his mate coaxed him from the other end of the line.

"My name is Sesshoumaru," he grit out slightly more rough than he'd intended, but it irritated him she refused to address him more familiarly. She was his marked mate.

"I am aware of your name, Taishou-san," she chuckled. "I have read a newspaper or two in the past. Just as you should also be aware of my reasons for continuing to call you the way any other stranger would."

"But I have given you leave to speak otherwise," Sesshoumaru all but whined.

"Maybe so Taishou-san, but it is up to me to choose to do so at my discretion." She sounded like she was smirking, "And I choose not to."

His mate was turning out to be a taciturn thing, though her calm was beginning to grate. She made no indication that she was angry beyond mild annoyance. And though she was clearly indignant over his marking her without prior consent, she'd not nagged at him about it beyond merely informing him that she did not appreciate his behavior. She treated him impersonally because she felt he was a stranger to her in as much as she was to him.

"Did I not please you?" the question came unbidden. He wanted to know so badly.

"I wouldn't know," she replied briefly.

"How could you not know?" he was incredulous. "It was your body, you were there."

"Your toxins made it quite impossible to know if I truly enjoyed one thing or another by manipulating my brain chemistry to interpret all stimulus as pleasure," she returned. "Your true prowess and capability to please me as a lover were masked by my unwilling intoxication. So I repeat, I wouldn't know. How could I know after you'd dosed me so many times?"

"I-" Sesshoumaru winced, though she couldn't see it. "I dosed you more than once?" He hadn't been aware of that. He could have damaged her irreparably. No wonder she believed him unfit and unworthy.

"So far I have recovered memories of at least three separate instances in our hours together filled with the burn of your mist," she informed him further. "I am fairly certain these were not all. If given the chance, you will find I don't appreciate being disallowed to experience things for myself."

Briefly he heard the muffled voice of another woman on her end before his mate responded into the phone. "I'm fine mama, it's just a drunken phone call from one of my classmates." The background woman said something else he didn't bother to hear, "No, he doesn't need a ride mama, he's already home. He's just too drunk to realize he should be sleeping. I imagine he'll drop off soon, until then I want to talk to him to make sure he doesn't try to go somewhere unnecessary."

The woman made some last parting remarks and his mate laughed good-naturedly before wishing her mother a restful, sweet sleep. Her mirth was delightful in his ear and Sesshoumaru realized it was the first time he'd heard her tinkling joy. It was also his first exposure to the warmth of her affection, even if it was directed at someone else.

"I am not drunk," Sesshoumaru petulantly expressed his mild jealousy. He wanted that affection for himself, that joy to be because of him. Unfortunately, he hadn't quite received her good opinion yet. But it was clear she disapproved of his drinking so he could clear that up. "You did not tell your mother of your marking, you did not tell her about me?" It hurt a bit that she was keeping him secret, though it did not surprise him.

She scoffed at him. "Why would I tell my mother I had sex with an ass who didn't have the decency to ask me before marking me? Are you sure you aren't drunk?" she snorted. And he had to concede she had the right to speak so. What she knew of him certainly didn't speak well for his planning or thinking abilities. "Besides, silence keeps her out of trouble, and makes my secrets easier to keep. I haven't told anyone so no one can get into trouble with the Taishou group for not coughing up the information." So true. She was, as he'd already surmised, far too intelligent to stupidly risk discovery. And apparently protective enough of her family to offer them this shield of ignorance. "As far as mama knows, you're just a drunk classmate, not even a friend. It is safer for her. And about all the effect you will have on my life." Something rustled on her end of the phone. "No need to worry her needlessly over nothing."

"I am not nothing," Sesshoumaru growled. "I am your mate."

"And I maintain a mate should know something about a person before mating them," she rebuffed him. "You're just a man, like any other, who thinks with nothing but his penis." Amazingly, she didn't sound bitter or really anything. There were no obvious emotional overtones in her voice. She just stated it like it was a commonly known fact.

"How is it you have come to have such a low opinion of me?" Sesshoumaru asked, his sorrow beginning to stain his speech. He couldn't help it. He was inu and his marked mate wanted nothing to do with him.

"You mean besides the fact that you marked me without my permission?" She inquired evenly. "Perhaps it has to do with the fall out I've seen others suffer from your treatment. They were mere things to you, not people. Many of them I knew personally, a few more I didn't, but respected regardless of their many varied responses to your treatment. I would be surprised if you knew or cared how any of them dealt with your abuse."

"I never abused anyone - "

"That is only what you perceive," she cut him off gently. "Tears that are shed in pain should never be scoffed at, whether you care about the person who sheds them or not."

"Did you cry?" he wanted to know, had he caused his mate pain.

"No," she answered. "we were not involved on a personal level, and while I was not interested in becoming physically intimate with you at the time, it has not hurt that I was your sexual liaison that night. A girl could do worse, and it certainly hasn't killed me. Perhaps later I will develop some psychosis or another as a result of it, but so long as it doesn't interfere with my goals, I care not. I, however, am not the only person you have wronged. You have hurt a lot of people in your recklessness and failed to show any consideration for those who went before me. And they were real, worthwhile people deserving of respect and compassion whether you marked them or not."

"Life and interpersonal relations are messy, mate," he replied. "Sometimes people get hurt."

"Indeed," she agreed, "But that is merely an excuse for hurting the number of people you have. A rationalization that helps you sleep at night. The truth is the swath of people you've cut through is far too wide to be dismissed."

"I had a reason," Sesshoumaru argued. Self-preservation was a reason.

"What reason?" she asked patiently, willing to hear him out before passing judgment.

"My father was planning to mate me off after I graduate," he began. "He was going to disown me if I refused and exile me from the pack. But I didn't want to mate at his direction. Mating is too serious, too permanent to leave up to an outsider." Sesshoumaru shifted uncomfortably, he'd never been one to speak of pack issues with anyone outside his intimate pack. Hell, he didn't usually speak of them within his pack. "I couldn't go against him directly, I would lose my pack, my family. I couldn't just mate to spite him."

"So you cultivated a reputation and habit of womanizing and drunken abandon to create the opportunity for you to mate a woman of your own choice 'on accident'," she finished for him. "In order to spite your alpha and take the decision from him you set yourself up for heartache and in so doing broke more than your fair share of hearts as a result."

"I suppose you would see it that way," he agreed weakly, seeing her point, though he was unwilling to admit it. It would seem that Sesshoumaru had mated his conscience.

"Are you pleased with your success?" she asked blankly

"I'd be more pleased if you were here with me," he grumbled.

"Why?" she scoffed. "It's not like you can find genuine comfort in me, you don't know me. I'm not familiar enough to offer that kind of respite. My sterling conversation only sparkles because you are currently alone and bored. Why would my presence increase your satisfaction in your victory over your alpha?"

"Because you are my mate," Sesshoumaru was beginning to feel like a broken record.

"Why did you call me, Taishou-san?" she sighed wearily and he could swear he almost felt the air brush past his pointed, sensitive ear.

"I had a dream," Sesshoumaru responded honestly. The weary inu impulsively vowed to always be honest with his mate after this. She thought badly of him because he had hurt a lot of people, because he had failed to consider her as a person before marking her.

"What kind of dream?" she asked warily.

"An erotic dream, from which I was woken most abruptly," he replied. "As I have continued to be since your abandonment."

"Are you trying to say it is my fault you were awakened before the completion of your wet dream?" she trilled with amusement. "And I couldn't abandon you if I wasn't responsible for you in the first place, especially when you don't even know my name to rely on me prior to this alleged abandonment."

"It is your fault," Sesshoumaru insisted. "The dreams all feature you and your desertion of your mate has seen to it that you are not here to fix the problem."

Her response was a disbelieving snort, "I doubt your lustful fantasies truly feature me as the star since you don't even know who I am. And I don't really have to be present for you to see to yourself. You are quite welcome to find another lover as I doubt you will see me for the indefinite future."

"I will not dishonor you," Sesshoumaru snarled fiercely. He couldn't believe she would even suggest he find relief from another female.

"Oh please, your own family history is proof that inu are not strictly monogamous," she scoffed. "And all the material I have read about inu youkai is very clear about the promiscuity of the males. Besides, it is not as if we are in an actual relationship for you to betray."

Sesshoumaru growled angrily but couldn't say anything against her statement. It was true that Hiroyuki did not believe in fidelity to one woman for Sesshoumaru's own mother was not his alpha's mate when he was born. Izayoi, Inuyasha's mother, was his sire's mate, and had been at the time of Sesshoumaru's conception and subsequent birth. The papers had made a great point of plastering it across the newsstands of the world both when he was born and when his brother had entered the world as well. There was nothing quite like being six years old and seeing the scandal of your own birth discussed publicly on TV and on the playground of his school.

Knowing that the only reason his mother had been chosen to birth the Taishou heir was because Izayoi had proven all but incapable of carrying a babe borne of his father's seed to term prior to Inuyasha's successful birth wasn't the sort of thing to promote familial warmth. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. After high school Sesshoumaru had refused to see either female and may well have done the same to his own father if he thought it wouldn't have resulted in a permanent breach with his father's pack.

He wasn't ready to be on his own. Sesshoumaru had entertained the thought that maybe, if he obtained a mate he could tolerate it, he would be strong enough to start his own pack far away from the power of his father. "I will not seek another, mate, so do not suggest it."

It was time to change the subject. He wasn't ready to let the call end and despite her contrariness, he enjoyed her sharp but gentle tongue. "You live with your mother?" Her family was a fairly safe topic, besides which, it was important information to establish. If his mate had no residence of her own she wouldn't show up on any bills and such. This could prove yet another road block in hunting her down before her escape from the country.

She snorted, "Not usually. I did tell you I would spend my last days in the country with my family, or were you not paying attention?"

"So you did," Sesshoumaru sighed. "What of the rest of this family you will be spending time with? Who are they?"

"Well there's my younger brother who's not yet out of high school, and my mildly crazy grandfather," she answered him warmly, her affection for each shining through to caress his pointed ear. "Both of which are deeply asleep at the moment. And there's mama. Hopefully she's back to sleep by now."

"Did my call wake her?" Sesshoumaru inquired worried that he had disturbed the sleep of someone very important to the female he had tenuous connection with.

"I doubt it," his mate replied mildly. "She got into the habit of checking on me in the middle of the night when I was little. Her internal clock is a bit unusual because of my long standing insomnia."

"That probably comes in handy when you need to study," Sesshoumaru observed.

"Not really," she disagreed. "I generally run out of things to study very quickly. Then I end up reading just about anything I can get my hands on. I had one roommate who had an extensive collection of Greek and roman mythology. And another roommate who was an exterminator. Reading her library has proven exceptionally handy recently."

Sesshoumaru bit back a frustrated expletive. Apparently checking who amongst the slayers had helped his mate interfere with the mark was going to prove another dead end.

"Did I just throw up another road block?" she could have made that sound cheeky, but it wasn't. "True the Exterminators might seem a good place to start when tracking me down, I suppose. But you know the youkai behavioral manuals aren't exactly restricted to members of that profession. In fact, I have a friend who managed to buy a rather ancient set of youkai encyclopedia volumes on-line a little while back."

This time he really did curse. Her ability to point out the flaws in their search strategies without being snide about it was almost as irritating as it would've been if she was.

She sighed, "Face it, Taishou-san, you won't find me if I don't want to be found."

"And you do not wish to be found," Sesshoumaru sighed.

"Not at this time no," She agreed. "I still have a lot to do."

"What could you not have accomplished in Tokyo?" Sesshoumaru demanded shortly. There was very little that couldn't be found in a city of such resources.

"My goals, obviously," she had to be smirking at his abrupt speech. "Not every girl wants to be locked away in an ivory tower with nothing to show for her life beyond the male that laid claim to her. And I want that even less when the male in question didn't actually claim me because he wanted me personally."

"I want you," Sesshoumaru insisted.

"You don't know me enough _to_ want me as a person, Taishou-san," she retorted softly. "All you know of me is that I left and you apparently liked the use of my body very much."

"There are instincts," He began before she cut him off.

"Which are little more than subconscious reactions to biological stimuli," she declared distantly. "Somehow, your subconscious assessed the biological signals produced by my body and reacted to them accordingly. Perhaps the scent of my perspiration informed you my immunity type was complimentary to yours and would therefore offer your offspring superior ability to fight off disease. Maybe the shape of my hips triggered a response in your brain that I was built satisfactorily to carry your young. All of which are again not indications that you wanted me personally but rather found a female who displayed the optimum physical traits your genetic disposition called for in a mate." Her tone was so clinical and detached it was irritating, even if it was entirely accurate. Instinct did not look to personality, it looked to procreate successfully. "I repeat, you don't know me as a person, you know my body, which is merely the outer shell and carrying case for all the more important aspects of my character. In the same way that you are more than your silver hair, golden eyes, and future inheritance, I am more than a great pair of hips and genetic material for your progeny. Progeny, I might add, I have no intention of baring anytime soon."

"You refuse to carry my pups?"

"It would be fairly difficult for you to sire those pups when I won't let you near me," she pointed out. "Besides, I've a long difficult road ahead of me without the complication of carrying, birthing, and nursing whatever you and I managed to conceive."

"You would not be alone," Sesshoumaru insisted.

"You plan to do the birthing then, Taishou-san?" her voice was clearly amused. "Because that's the only way I can keep on track with my goals."

"Impossible woman," Sesshoumaru scoffed, amused in spite of himself. She was right he supposed. Even he knew birthing a pup was no small thing. But he had realized it wasn't that she objected to carrying his pups but rather to doing so now. She'd told him more than once in their two conversations that she had goals, goals that she wouldn't let anything interfere with. He should have realized that would have included pups when she pointedly insisted _he_ wasn't allowed to come between her and the achievements she sought to obtain.

"I'm glad we understand each other," she replied gently. "Perhaps next time you want to blame your wet dreams on me you'll remember that."

"I still want you," Sesshoumaru insisted with a smirk she couldn't see.

"Now who's the impossible one," she scoffed before hanging up quietly.

This call had been about as productive as the last one, but somehow he felt warm, satisfied as though he'd spent a night wrapped in the limbs of a woman.

Sesshoumaru had never fully appreciated the thrust and parry of an intelligent debate before, but with her it gave him a thrill that had been lacking in his conquests as of late. His body still throbbed with the want of her, but he found it didn't bother him as much now that he'd learned something of her. Nothing truly helpful in his efforts to find her, but for once he didn't seem to mind.

His mate was still far beyond his reach. She still intended to move farther away from him as well, but in a way, tonight he'd become a bit closer to her and that mattered more.

He still didn't know her name, but he knew she read a lot. He knew she loved and was protective of her family and he knew she was uncompromising of her own worth. And that, it would seem, meant more than their one night of physical intimacy.


	5. Calling Out

I noticed after posting the last chapter that chapters 2-4 indicate the wrong website. When I went looking to contact the author I found both author and story on FFN. The title is correct and the author name is correct. In fact, if you search under the author's name you only get one entry. Just shellbabe. That's if any of you were looking for the fic that started this insanity.

It's Kagome's turn to call Sesshoumaru in the small hours of the morning, though he may not enjoy the conversation as much as he hoped. It certainly isn't likely that she's calling to relent on her stance against their mating. And she definitely isn't calling about unsatisfactory wet dreams of her own...heehee.

If you're confused about Kagome's life goals, you should be, Sesshoumaru is. Kagome hasn't shared any of it yet. They are very personal and Sesshoumaru isn't that close yet. She doesn't know him very well yet, and he hasn't expressed a sincere desire to get to know her either. Sesshoumaru's demands to know about her stem from instinct and instinct only cares about the physical.

To Reiterate (which isn't a redundant word at all) the pacing on this piece will be slow. It will go many varied places. Both Sesshoumaru and Kagome will grow before we reach something like an ending to this tale.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from the first chapter of Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Calling Out**

Kagome strolled cheerfully down the bustling, foreign street. Though foreign on her part, may not be the right term considering the fact that she was the alien in this country.

It had taken her about a week to get over the jet lag, then another to figure out the time difference to prevent from waking up her grandfather and brother when calling home to check in. Her mother might be up all night, but neither of the others were and they certainly wouldn't appreciate the interruption of their pleasant dreams. Not that they didn't lie about it the two times she had mistakenly called the Higurashi household in the wee small hours of morning since her big move.

It was just one more thing to have to think about on top of all the other things she was having to get used to. Tokyo may have been a world class city, but it was a different urban beast than the city her new school called home. The languages spoken on the street didn't have the same inflections as they did back home. Back home, there were foreigners from a number of different nations at all times, Tokyo being a big center of business and tourism, and though each one added a certain tone to the overall hum of the city, the predominant language was Japanese. The notes struck here were different, and they added emphasis on the wrong syllables, a distinction that effected general pronunciation in ways difficult to discern from her textbooks prior to now. Even so, she was managing to get by just fine.

Her homework would prove the more challenging for the language barrier, but that was nothing she hadn't already accounted for in the initial decision to go to school here. It was just a more intense change than she'd anticipated.

She'd known the "western" dishes served in Tokyo weren't exactly a match for the same concoctions made on their native shores, but Kagome had never realized just how different they would be. Every restaurant she passed on her way to and from the school funded apartment she lived in emitted strange scents full of previously unencountered spice combinations. The spaghetti here just wasn't the same as it was back in Tokyo and stew simply didn't have the same connotations as a similarly prepared dish back home. A hot pot meal here simmered for hours with basil and other spices whereas back home, a hot pot was cooked right on the table at the time of the meal. And she was told the restaurants around here didn't really do most of their menu adequate justice if she wanted the adventure of "authentic" ethnic foods. Her new roommate insisted on cultural exchanges in their meals. He tended to lean towards the American dishes, while his boyfriend prepared time honored french cuisine as learned from the women of his family. Today was to be Kagome's turn, which brought her to another facet of her new city that had proven a surprise.

It was really difficult to find some of the standard ingredients for most of her favorite dishes.

She wanted to make oden, but finding decent konnyaku, daikon radish, atsuage, and ganmodoki had proven fairly difficult. And the soy sauce here just wasn't like it was in Japan. Her options were to either alter her plans for tonight and wait a while longer until she found a decent supplier and a more appropriate season or to make do with what she could find and call her mom for ideas. Oden was generally a cold weather dish, eaten in winter or fall and it was summer now. At least, summer for here. Kagome wasn't sure how she would survive the coming winter if the balmy temperatures she was slowly getting used to were normal for what passed as summer around here.

She was going to have to figure out a way to procure more warm clothing long before the seasons were supposed to change. Much as she had anticipated a colder climate, she hadn't quite expected to be this cool during the summer. Experiencing something and knowing something had never been so blatantly two different things.

Kagome absently shrugged her shoulders, what could she do about it now. She certainly wasn't going to throw her hands up and run on home, giving up her dream and the most viable chance of achieving it because things were a little different from what she expected.

She was determined. Besides, there really wasn't anything for her back home. She could live at the shrine with her family, but she really wasn't cut out to perform fake rites at holidays and over remains when she was fully capable of doing it for real, with all the power of a real miko at hand. Temptation would eventually be given in to and she would be exposed. Kagome then saw her future as a series of near escapes as a multitude of would-be youkai lovers hunted her down for the thrill of sampling a miko carnally. That is, if Taishou-san didn't get to her first and lock her up in an ivory tower. So if she gave up now, her future was a long chase or an even longer imprisonment.

Definitely not for her.

Kagome passed by an electronics store and was reminded suddenly of Taishou-san and the phone he'd begged her to keep. Which was fine, she supposed, except that it didn't work on this continent. She had finally gotten around to replacing it with a more local phone, but had yet to actually call him. Part of the delay was due to her ever shaky grasp of time zones, the rest was a result of how quickly time had slipped by her in the three weeks since she'd arrived.

The silence probably seemed like torture to him, which made her feel guilty. She hadn't meant to torture him. Now would be a good time to call him, she thought to herself as she lifted a basket from the stack next to the door she'd just walked through ready to tackle the long, packed aisles in search of culinary gold, she certainly didn't need all of her concentration to navigate a grocery store.

Carefully, she typed in the number for his half of the pair of phones she'd bought almost a month ago. Then, while it rang she pulled out her nifty little blue tooth attachment and put it on before turning it on.

She was slightly surprised the phone was allowed to ring so many times before the call connected, only to be followed by the sound of thumping and fumbling. Then Taishou-san's slurred voice sounded in her ear, "Mate?"

Kagome glanced at her watch then and realized it was four in the morning in Tokyo, "Sorry, Taishou-san, I didn't mean to wake you. I'm still getting used to the time difference. I'll try calling again later," she added with a sigh. She would just have to remember to do it.

"No!" the inu youkai on the other end all but yelped. Though she couldn't be certain if his hasty protest and the accompanying sound were born of actual desperation to keep her on the line or as a result of the knocking around she could hear in the background on his end. For all she knew, he stubbed his toe.

"Taishou-san, are you all right?" she asked for clarification.

"Don't hang up," he answered a bit more sedately. "I tried to call you."

"I imagined you had attempted to. You should receive my old phone in the mail shortly. It didn't work here and I had to get a new one," Kagome explained gently. "It took some doing to find a good one while trying to settle in."

"Have you contacted your family?" he inquired quietly.

"Of course," Kagome replied absently as she strove to navigate around a woman, her cart, and the three children clouded around it. "I use calling cards for them though."

"But you did not bother to contact me until now," she couldn't decide if he sounded more hurt or angry.

"Taishou-san, I might remind you I am not required to contact you at all. I contacted my mother the minute I reached a phone after my plane landed because she has no way of knowing if I am still alive, you do." Kagome pointed out. Despite the interference Kagome was putting up in regards to the mark and its subsequent bond with the youkai, he should still be able to feel it was in place and active even if he could feel nothing else from it.

"Mate..." he growled on a sigh.

"Are you always this grumpy when waken up in the small hours of the morning?" Kagome cut him off. Obviously he had no right to scold her about anything. His track record was full of impulsive decisions. Someone so reckless and inconsiderate didn't have a leg to stand on when it came to scolding her about anything she did. "If so, I will hang up and allow you to get some more sleep."

"No! For sanity's sake woman, the call is in place, leave it be!"

Kagome rolled her eyes, "I do not plan to be on the phone for the rest of the day, Taishou-san."

"I do not require that you stay on the phone that long, mate," Taishou-san loosed a weary sigh. "I do, however wish to speak with you for more than a handful of minutes."

"Hmm," Kagome hummed without inflection. She neither cared about his reasoning nor questioned his motives. He was inu, that told her enough. Besides, she was preoccupied with trying to get past the same woman again. She needed to find either a bigger market, or a better time for her shopping. Her roommate thought she was batty for going shopping for food everyday. But then, he also thought she needed a car for the chore as well.

"Where are you, mate?" she assumed he knew that she wouldn't supply her country, or even the city she was in, so she didn't bother to scold him for the question.

"Shopping for food," she murmured. "My roommate insists that we take turns cooking food from home every week. The first week he made something he insisted his grandma brought over from the old country before the family emigrated. Last week his boyfriend made something his French grandmere used to fix him when he was a boy. So this week is my turn."

"You live with a male?" he growled his jealousy down the line.

"I live with a homosexual male who is in a serious relationship with another of the same sexual persuasion," she corrected him.

"He is still male," the gruff voice continued to growl, even when he wasn't speaking words.

"Actually, he's more like a girl than I am sometimes," she added with amusement. "You should see how packed his closet is. I've never seen so many clothes in one place that weren't for sale before. And shoes! You'd think he had a few extra pairs of feet with how many different shoes he has!"

"The point, mate, was that he was male. And regardless of his sexual orientation and penchant for fashion, he is still equipped with the required genitalia to label him male and a threat to this one's claim," the inu youkai growled a bit louder, his mood darkening the more she insisted on talking about him.

"Good grief, Taishou-san. You're worse than my mother. She doesn't have a problem with it. She actually thinks Brett-san is the other daughter she never birthed. I think she likes him better than me."

"She is aware this 'Brett-san' is male," Sesshoumaru still hadn't lost the growl but he was beginning to regain a small amount of his self control as well as some grasp of his higher reasoning ability. Kagome was telling him that his opinion in this didn't matter. He wasn't family as far as she was concerned. He wasn't even a close friend, and if he persisted in opposing this, she would hang up.

"The way he put it was that he was a brain girl." Kagome responded as she reached out to study the back of a package of rice. Maybe she should just make a traditional style breakfast instead of the oden. Ingredients for that would be easier to find, provided she could find some decent fish. "He might have just been saying that to make my mom laugh though. He gets all protective and stuff, like some of my guy friends back home when I have to walk home at night. He's helping me get a job at the bar he works at. I'd be a bartender, and only scheduled to work at the same time he does."

"A bartender?"

"It's a coffee bar," Kagome clarified for him. "Mostly, anyway. They serve any combination of coffee, chocolate, and alcohol. I personally think the combination of any two of those is extremely unhealthy, but apparently it's a very popular hang out among the local students. Which kind of explains a lot if you think about it."

"A bartender, mate. After signing into my building as "SafeRide" I find it difficult to believe you would hire on as a dealer of alcohol," he commented wryly.

Kagome had to grin at the irony of it too, "Yep, I've become a complete and utter wild woman since I abandoned you. I drink soft drinks with a straw and eat Breakfast cereals packed with sugar."

"Hnn," she imagined she could hear him smirk through the phone.

"Maybe I'll start painting my toe nails outrageous colors and wear huge clip on earrings," she added with a smirk of her own. "I may even let my roommate experiment with make up on my face."

"Hnn, so long as it washes off eventually," the inu replied.

"Most make up does," Kagome pointed out. "Unless you go in for the tattoo make up, then you're pretty much stuck with the same look forever," she added perversely.

"I would advise against any tattoos," Taishou-san counseled. "You will out live the vibrancy of any pigment unless you reapply it often."

"Well, there's always henna tattoos," Kagome shrugged as she eyed the fish selections. None of it looked or smelled fresh enough for her preference. "I miss mama's cooking," she grumbled quietly.

"Is the food there that bad?" Taishou-san asked her directly.

"Hmm," Kagome hummed, not realizing she'd voiced the pseudo-complaint out loud. "It's different. I'm just supposed to make something Japanese for dinner tonight and I can't find any of the stuff I need. I wanted to make Oden. I realize it's the wrong season, but it's easy and offers more than just Japanese flavor, but an actual experience. But I can't find any of the traditional ingredients. Then I thought I'd make a traditional breakfast, but the fish here is rather limited."

"I'd offer you advice, but being inu, my idea of a meal consists mostly of meat," he declared.

"That's it!" Why hadn't she thought of it before? It was simple, completely Japanese and there wasn't a thing in it distinctly ethnic beyond the sauce which she could make if she couldn't find one decent enough for her taste.

"What?"

"I'll make Sukiyaki," she answered as she headed for the beef. "I may have to adjust the vegetables a bit, but I did see the noodles back a few aisles. I passed them over because I was looking for something else." That, and she questioned the quality of the taste, but a good sauce could cover everything.

"I see." His growling had finally stopped, for which Kagome was glad. She didn't exactly enjoy having somebody growl in her ear for no reason. Or even if he had a reason. It was annoying either way. "So, is this the best time to contact you?"

"Not really," she shook her head at the butcher's offer before instructing him to slice the tender slab of beef in thin slices. "Next week I start a class that runs past this hour. Your best bet would be to call me about mid afternoon your time, which would catch me in the small hours where nobody else is awake, but I understand you likely have things to do at that time of the day. I have Saturday and Sundays off, unless I work, which sounds like I will most evenings. As I said, afternoons or early evenings would be your best bet to catch me outside of class and work."

"I will see if I can arrange to have that time off," Taishou-san declared clearly. "I have been allotted time to continue my studies so I am taking advantage of it. Provided of course, I still attend to my father's maneuvering whims at the company."

"You don't sound very enthusiastic about it," Kagome observed. "Aren't you supposed to inherit that someday?"

"With much money, comes great intrigue," Taishou-san chuckled mirthlessly. "Have I tarnished the dream of wealth and easy life?"

"Pssh," Kagome scoffed. "Don't make it sound like I slept with you for your money. It cheapens me and you."

"I suppose it does," he sighed.

"If you don't look forward to taking over the reins, why are you studying to do just that?"

"If one maintains a place other than alpha in a pack, one must obey the whims of the alpha of that pack," the inu youkai explained.

"I'm sorry, but that makes no real sense," Kagome declared. "I am not the head of my family. My grandfather is, and if I were to follow his whims, I would be back in Japan eking out a living as a shrine maiden in a forgotten shrine and reciting stories of things that never happened. Instead, I am here, following my dream with the blessing of all my family, including my erstwhile grandfather. They love me and I love them. I have not been ejected from the bosom of my family because they wish for me to be happy and able to take care of myself."

"Your 'alpha' as you call your father cannot truly desire to drive you to early insanity in a position you neither desire nor enjoy." Kagome walked to the produce department to look over the vegetable candidates. "What did he do when you approached him about mating despite knowing his intentions to mate you off? Did he cut you off? Throw a fit? Disinherit you?"

"You don't know what you speak of."

"Or did he accept it? Take offense in your stead that I left?" she ignored him. "See the last is what a supportive father would do. The first is something a controlling tyrant would do instead."

"He is both, mate," Taishou-san sighed wearily. "If this Sesshoumaru had not first established a certain reputation, Father would have seen my mating as a direct act of rebellion and expelled me from his pack. This is a fact. That he did not is proof that this Sesshoumaru successfully created the illusion that it was an accident rather than premeditated. That you immediately left probably helped to support that image."

"And dosing me. Does that help or hinder you one upping your old man?" she asked evenly.

"Actually, he is unaware of that detail," he answered. "I would have preferred the success of seducing you without the aid of such."

"You would have been unsuccessful without it," Kagome insisted with amusement. "I wasn't interested and told you point blank I wasn't interested, which is probably why you dosed me in the first place. It seems you found it unfathomable that a female would ever be able to resist your drunken charm."

"You remember?"

"I remember everything that happened before you dosed me the first time at the bottom of the elevator. You were clumsily flirting and I was ignoring you as well as anyone could who was holding you up from the floor," she explained. "You first noticed me when the clerk demanded a name for the logs."

"And you gave him 'SafeRide'," Sesshoumaru finished the explanation.

"Well, I certainly didn't want a suddenly sober youkai hunting me down after that to turn me into a statistic."

"This Sesshoumaru is aware." Kagome imagined him rubbing a hand over his face, or maybe he was massaging one of his temples. It wouldn't be anything new for somebody to suffer a headache after dealing with her. She was often told she could be very difficult to deal with. "I must commend you on your ability to disappear, mate. Most people suddenly in your situation wouldn't have been able to completely evade the pursuit of an inu youkai."

"Tokyo was a big help in that, I assure you," Kagome offered soothingly. His ego had probably suffered a serious blow when he couldn't track her down on his own. Inu were historically known as excellent trackers. The problem was that a lot of history didn't take place in modern urban centers like Tokyo. "That and the youkai encyclopedias I read a while back."

"Stop mate. I was complimenting your intelligence, just accept it."

"Heh, you think my ability to escape you is a clue as to how smart I am? For all you know I could just be lucky or you could be really unlucky. One or the other."

"Luck had nothing to do with it," he insisted.

"It's just that you don't know it for sure." Kagome smiled at the cashier who accepted the tender necessary to pay for her shopping before collecting her purchases and change and heading outside with a shiver. "But, to save you from doubt, you're not the first to call me intelligent so I suppose I must be, compared to some. My new school certainly thought so. Enough that they're paying my tuition, for my rent and for my meals. I also have four academic advisers."

"Is that why you chose to leave Tokyo U?"

"Nah, I had a full ride at Tokyo U too. There's a whole other story as to why I chose to come here. And it will have to wait for another time. I'm headed back to my apartment and I need to start preparing for dinner. We like to eat early on Fridays because my roommate has to work tonight, his boyfriend has a standing engagement with an evening class, and it gives me lots of time to study in peace and quiet since all the neighbors, who are also students, are out having a good time."

"We will talk again, mate," he promised.

"Certainly we will, provided you save this number."

"I will most assuredly do so," he returned.

"Get some sleep Taishou-san," Kagome advised him gently.

"I wish you would call me Sesshoumaru."

"Maybe some other time. Pleasant dreams."

"Hnn."

The click of the phone clapping shut made Kagome smile. It was almost Therapeutic to talk to Taishou-san. When she called her family, she had to put a brave face on and sound all positive. With the big inu, he didn't care what she talked about so long as she didn't hang up on him. She could scold him, spout off bits of personal philosophy and he wouldn't panic and threaten to track her down. Well he might want to, but he had no way of doing it. Mostly it was just nice to talk Japanese with someone who was willing to talk about mundane stuff. The sorts of things she used to talk to her roommates or her friends about.

She could talk to her roommate here about things, but not in Japanese. And she had to apply a censor to the things she said to her family so that they wouldn't worry too much. Taishou-san worrying didn't bother her. And soothing him was more like teasing than placating. Something she'd have to analyze later.

For now, she had some prepping to do.


	6. From a Distance

Well, now Kagome has a phone and Sesshoumaru has her number. A relationship can build in earnest since the lines of communication are open. Trust can be engendered and strengthened. But it isn't going to happen over night. No connection worth having and capable of lasting is instant. yes the romantic drivel of "love at first sight" is a wonderful fantasy, but in real life it is hardly something I would trust. What can you learn from a person on first sight? Their core values? What things they like to do? How they unwind from a long day? They're work ethic and stance on family values? No. You can only see what they look like, hardly a deep understanding of personality or character. If you get close enough you might be able to sniff out their subtle scents indicating immune system type, but as Kagome has pointed out to Sesshoumaru and I've pointed out in ANs, Instinct doesn't care about personal compatibility. I counsel sanity while Hollywood and Disney pump out fairytales and insanity.

I happen to have a lot of time off this week and since a lot of people have asked about something that just so happens to come out in this chapter, I was in the mood to post it early. Besides, my buffer between where you're at and where I'm at is enough for me to feel comfortable giving up one extra chapter now.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from the first chapter of Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**From a Distance**

Sesshoumaru ran a distracted hand down his face before letting loose a weary sigh no one was around to notice. The light creeping into his apartment was weak and watery due to the time of year and the snow falling outside.

Months had passed since that fateful day when he'd marked a mate and promptly lost her to the fullness of her personality. A personality he could now see he should have developed an understanding of prior to marking her. That he hadn't could have been a prolonged error with uninterrupted access to her delightful body.

To put it bluntly, Sesshoumaru would have made their entire relationship about sex and by doing so denied himself the best friend he'd ever known. The enforced separation, alleviated by regular telephonic contact, allowed him to develop a deeper connection to the woman that was his unknown mate. He could honestly say, he knew her better now than he knew some of his blood pack and he still didn't know her name or species.

Much as he wanted to know those two pieces of information, he had to be careful. She could easily hang up and never answer his calls again if he upset her too much.

Having been raised as the heir to his alpha's vast and still growing business empire, he had been restricted in his various connections growing up. He was only supposed to be seen with the best of people even as a child. Sadly, most of those upper echelon youngsters he'd attended classes with had, like him, been groomed to take over businesses in a cutthroat world. As such he could never trust them nor they he.

His half brother, the favored son, had never been so strictly held back from outsiders. Inuyasha had attended public schools and made friends, not that Sesshoumaru had ever met most of them, but he knew the hanyou had them. He wondered now, if his life would have been vastly different if he had been treated similarly.

Sesshoumaru had never been friendly with anyone, now that he thought about it. He wasn't even certain he knew how. So really, was it any surprise that he'd resorted to one night stands to find a mate?

His watch started beeping the appointed hour, and without moving or adjusting his position Sesshoumaru hit the send button on his special phone kept close to hand at all hours of the day.

"Hello, Taishou-san," her voice greeted him cheerfully.

"What is on the agenda today, my mate?" he'd fairly well admitted they held a permanent stalemate on the subject of his name. He still disliked that she wouldn't concede to address him more informally but there was little he could do to induce her to change. She insisted that familiarity could not be gained by physical intimacy and while he had learned a great deal about her, he had kept much of himself away from her.

For the first time in his life he actually cared what somebody thought of him.

"I am wrapping Christmas gifts," she answered absently.

"Gifts? You cannot possibly have that many lovers," he declared drily. The long months of communication and getting to know her had allowed him to tease her occasionally without getting too upset. He knew she had no lovers and no intentions of finding any, not even him.

"Christmas in most countries outside of Japan is a family holiday, Taishou-san. My roommate was scandalized when he found out I hadn't bought anything for my family yet," she sighed in weary amusement, the sound of scissors slicing through paper carrying across the great distance of half a world. "It was quite dramatic. To make my life easier , I went ahead and got a few things. I was planning to send things for the new year anyway."

"Hn," Sesshoumaru snorted.

"Well, I'm not able to go home for any part of my winter break, my academic advisers won't let me. They're afraid I'll lose momentum or something," she explained distractedly. "I don't know why they'd think that, it was my idea from the start. They'd never even considered the possibility until I brought it up."

"Perhaps it is their own momentum they fear losing?" he suggested gently. If there was anything he'd learned about his mate, she was very driven. _Very driven_. Whatever it was she was after she was determined to achieve. Which reminded him, he still didn't know what she was doing.

He had an inkling. One did not talk with someone everyday for months at a time without divulging at least that. She was there to learn, thus she often studied through their calls.

As an inu, Sesshoumaru couldn't give up the only connection he had with his mate, but listening to her mumble through her notes about one or the other of her subjects wasn't particularly engaging. He wanted to connect with her, to talk to her, be a part of whatever she was interested in. Underlying this intensely unmanageable desire was most likely his mate's continued insistence that he wasn't worthy of her _because_ he didn't know enough about her to understand why she wouldn't stay. He'd had to assume that she left to pursue her continued education which was certainly her plan before he marked her. She obviously was determined to excel at it, continuing to study almost to the point of completely ignoring him on many occasions.

So, Sesshoumaru took steps. It took a bit of persuasion to get her to send him a list of her books, but he ultimately succeeded and had since been helping her study. He was still trying to figure out what exactly she was attempting to do. In the meanwhile he was learning quite a bit.

She was obviously pursuing a medical career as all her text books had to do with physiology, immune systems, and treatment courses. Under normal circumstances, Sesshoumaru would have been able to identify her species based on the species she was allowed to study as most schools limited their admissions to each program so that humans learned human medicine and youkai learned youkai medicine. Tokyo University took it a step further by limiting Female youkai to studying pediatrics and midwifery and males to the more technical specialties such as surgery and the like.

His mate, however, was studying human _and_ youkai medicine, which he'd never even heard was allowed anywhere.

"It occurs to this Sesshoumaru to wonder what your ultimate goal is, mate." He had wondered it before and had asked about it. Actually, he'd demanded what could take precedence over a mating with him. She'd always failed to provide an answer, brushing him off. Over the last few months he'd grown to believe that she had done so because of the way he'd handled the subject. He hadn't been interested in knowing because he was truly interested, but because it got in the way of what he wanted. Maybe now she would answer since Sesshoumaru truly was curious and he was certain she could sense it.

"It's a long story, if you want to know it. Do you have the time?" she asked him. Letting him know that she was finally willing to divulge the information.

"This Sesshoumaru is done with exams and classes through January, mate. There is plenty of time for you," he replied a tad too eager, which drew a gentle chuckle from her end of the phone.

"You're just bored," she teased him.

"Perhaps, but I also wish to know what has so many professors determined to keep you buried in text books."

"It is pretty unusual I suppose but in order to tell you what I intend to do, I have to tell you why," her tone was ponderous as she fell silent. For a while he feared she'd changed her mind about speaking to him but then she started to speak again with a nostalgic tone. "When I was little, I was never very popular. Most kids didn't know what to make of me but tolerated me well enough to talk politely to me much of the time. My grandparents had long been well respected in a quiet way by the majority of the community and, while my peers generally thought them crazy, that respect from the parents kept me from being left out of things like odd kids tend to be." His mate was rather blasé about the topic now, but Sesshoumaru imagined she had been anything but at the time. "Or at least, that was how things were until my grandmother died."

Sesshoumaru knew his mate had been close to her grandmother though he wasn't truly certain what that closeness had entailed.

"In the months after her death, nobody talked to me. Part of it was, I'm sure, that they simply didn't know what to say. Most kids these days don't lose family members like that when they're so young, so they didn't know how it felt and could offer no words that either wouldn't upset me more or make them feel even more uncomfortable. So in fear of offending, they said nothing and left me alone. And I wallowed in it." She sighed morosely, "Looking back now, it was like I was drowning and the silence was just swallowing me up until I couldn't talk. I didn't know how to deal with it. Grandmother had been my strongest support all through the death of my father before that. But without her to help me through her own...I was just collapsing under the strain of it." She sniffed a moment before moving on. "It was a good thing we got a transfer student in our class a few months after she died. We didn't often get new students at our school despite its being a Tokyo public school. Our community was fairly stable and our student body traditionally unchanging. So it was a major thing for us to receive a transfer student in the middle of the school year."

"I don't think just any transfer student would have had the same affect on me though, despite the general excitement, if he wasn't also something completely new to all of us."

"He," Sesshoumaru started to growl.

"Don't start getting jealous about anything until you've heard the entire story," she scolded him abruptly. The sound of scissors running through wrapping paper echoed down the line almost threateningly, he had asked for the story and was interrupting it in an untimely manner. "You'll feel silly if you don't hear the end before you allow the story to affect you."

"Hn, please continue."

Sesshoumaru was certain he could hear her smirk as she continued. "He was hanyou, and despite the previously mixed heritage of our school and the abstract knowledge that there were such people in the world, I and many of the others had never met one. Again, even that probably wouldn't have been enough to bring me up out of the pit I'd been swallowed by, except...Well, the youkai in our class avoided him because he avoided them too. And the humans, they had learned many years previously that it was best to observe a youkai prior to attempting to make friends because every species prefers different behaviors and displays of respect, but also because youkai are more forgiving when familiar with their fellows. Only, it was taking a lot longer with him because he shrank away even from them. Like me, nobody disliked him completely, but nobody talked to him either."

"He was very lucky to have been placed in my class, because nobody bullied anybody around me. Apparently I had a very terrifying look of disapproval and by the time of his arrival I had already trained everybody in my class out of such behaviors through the use of it with lethal accuracy. But that didn't keep him from being alone all the time, and I believed it meant that he was lonely – like I was beginning to feel I was too. So I decided in determined, childish fashion that he was going to be my friend. And I told him so at the first opportunity and many times after that."

"Quite forward of you," he couldn't help but comment. Though he could just imagine her doing such a thing. Nothing held his mate back from achieving whatever she set out to achieve. Not mating and certainly not unfamiliarity.

She laughed warmly, "I don't think he knew what to make of me. I was always provoking him into something whether it was annoyance, frustration, laughter I always tried to get him to respond to me. And it still took two months before I heard him say anything. I was so elated I told him he was going to marry me when we grew up!" her laughter slowly quieted after her statement and he was lucky she didn't seem to hear his growl. "I learned later that the reason his parents had transferred him into our school was because of how badly he'd been bullied in his last school. They'd terrorized him until he stopped talking and he generally arrived home gasping for breath and near tears." She sighed, "They didn't know what to make of me either, but apparently decided that since I got him to talk again they'd try to believe the best of me until proven otherwise."

"He never could get away from me at school, and he tried so hard sometimes too. If he looked even mildly interested in doing something our classmates were involved in I would ask if we could join them before he could protest that he didn't really want to. I figured he was just shy, and most times he played along and was grinning before whatever game or activity was finished. But I made sure never to push him into anything he really didn't want to do." She paused to pay attention to something on her end for a moment, perhaps to take a drink of water before she continued. "Eventually I think he realized what I was doing and decided that I wasn't bad, though he came to that decision very reluctantly. I was such a frustration to him after all!"

This time the pause was preparatory for the next part of the story, and Sesshoumaru could sense the abrupt change in her mood from their bond, despite the great distance and whatever she was using to muffle it. "We were thick as thieves and all the class grew to really like him after a while though he was always referred to as my friend." He could hear her old sorrow collecting in the deeper nuances of her voice though he couldn't fathom what was causing it.

"About two years after he came to us, an illness swept through school. It was one of those normal childhood diseases that most kids get and then quickly get over in a few days. Most missed a couple days of school. All of the humans got it, and a handful of the youkai did too. I was out for a full three days when I came down with it, and by the time I went back to school, he'd caught it also." She took a deep breath and continued. "I hadn't seen him in far longer an interval than had happened since I met him and I missed him. So I convinced the teacher to give me his homework and when my mom came to pick me up, I persuaded her to take me to his house."

"We rang the bell and knocked on their door, I grew more and more anxious the longer we waited while my mother grew more and more confused until a neighbor informed us that the family had rushed out to the hospital early that morning. I wanted to go to the hospital right then, but it was growing late and mother wanted to go home and get started on dinner for grandpa and my brother. She was also worried about letting me stay out too late as I was recovering from that illness myself." She paused again, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly before continuing. "We went home. The next day at school, I talked all my classmates and my teachers into helping me make one thousand paper cranes to take to him. I collected his homework and when mother came to pick me up, I demanded we go visit him in the hospital despite how much I didn't like hospitals. The only times I'd ever been to one was while my grandmother was sick before she died and in the emergency waiting room when my dad died. But I was determined to go see him."

"I don't think my mother was expecting to see him in ICU." She stated and his heart clenched. He knew where this was going to end and he didn't like it for the child his mate had been despite the woman she had managed to become afterward. "I wasn't even allowed to enter his room and give him the cranes or his homework. I could just stare at him through the glass and tap at the window hoping to wake him up and draw his attention. He looked worse than my Grandmother had, he was paler than the bed linens and so small. His breathing was labored and fast and the color was high in his cheeks, making the rest of him look even paler. I watched the nurses come and go, looking grim and confused. Even the doctors that came through looked unnerved and uncertain."

"I never knew that doctors could look that way. Even the ones gathered around my Grandmother in those last days were confident, grim but confident and fully aware of what they could do for her. I was stunned that something so simple as a child's sickness could shake them so. We stayed until visiting hours were over and my mother took me home. That night I had terrible nightmares about my grandmother and my father and about him that scared me so bad I crawled into bed with my mother. When I woke up the next morning I refused to go to school. My mother didn't even attempt to fight with me about it and just quietly drove me to the hospital." Her breath hitched with emotion briefly before she bravely mustered on with the story. "He died...sometime in the night. His parents were still there though and I begged his mother to give him the paper cranes. She and my mother were both surprised since paper cranes were supposed to be given at other times and for other reasons, but I insisted that if he didn't get them, then my grandmother wouldn't know to look after him for me until I got there." She sniffed, "For years after that, I made a point of giving a paper crane to every hanyou I met, I was afraid that something innocuous like a childhood illness would make them disappear before I got to know them."

"I am sorry mate," Sesshoumaru realized he didn't know what he was asking when he'd demanded to know what she was reaching for. This story was personal and emotional. No wonder she hadn't told him about it before. This was not a story for idle curiosity, there was too much of herself in it.

She heaved a great sigh before continuing, "Years later I remembered the faces of the doctors and nurses and was surprised again that they hadn't been able to do anything for him, so I did some research. Did you know that despite the increasing number of hanyou births, nobody has actually studied and developed any medical treatments specific to hanyou? I couldn't believe it. My good friend died of something so simple and so young because there simply wasn't enough information on hanyou and how they deal with disease naturally, so the doctors had no idea how to help him fight off his illness when he needed it." She huffed, clearly still scandalized by this revelation. "So, I decided that I was going to fix the problem."

"You intend to develop treatments for hanyou?" Sesshoumaru was stunned. This project of hers would take years. "How do you even know where to begin?"

"With youkai and human medicine naturally. I'm going to learn both, the better to figure out which more closely resembles hanyou. Or whether its a combination of the two rather than just one or the other." It made sense, he supposed. There was no where else for a child to get DNA from but the parents. Genetics defined the total make up of a body including the built in defenses against disease.

Most hanyou died very young for the very same reason as her friend did. He'd never questioned the reason for the statistics despite his own brother being one of the few to reach adulthood. "I have a hanyou brother," he murmured thoughtfully.

"I am aware of that, Taishou-san," she chuckled mildly. "I've read a paper or two in my time."

"Thank you for sharing this with me," Sesshoumaru was pleased to have learned something so important about her, but more than that, he found he greatly admired her for her drive, motivation, and her goals. It took a very special person to notice a deficiency in society and then step up to personally see it fixed.

"Thank you for being interested," she replied warmly. "Most schools were surprised when I applied to both the human and youkai medical programs. Many refused to even consider me for one or the other. This school was the only one to ask why I would do so. Once they realized what I was after, they were very encouraging. Maybe even impressed."

This was why she had four academic advisers and a full ride at her foreign school. Sesshoumaru imagined a number of her advisers were youkai themselves, probably related to a hanyou or two. He wouldn't be surprised if they had pooled together to supply that scholarship for her personally. It also explained why they were so afraid of her losing momentum. She was the first and only student aiming to develop hanyou medicine. If she failed, who knew how long it would take someone else to make the attempt. If she succeeded, it was likely his mate would start up a program to teach others after her. For she was one person and the world was a wide, expansive place.

Sesshoumaru could honestly say he was awed by his mate, by what she was attempting to accomplish, and how she was refusing to let the unknown intimidate her. And he was jealous, because he had nothing he'd ever cared to accomplish as much as she obviously desired to do this. He had no goals of his own, only ones that had been assigned to him by his sire. Never before had it been so very clear that, once again, he had proven unworthy of her.

"Are you all right, Taishou-san?"

"This Sesshoumaru _is_ unworthy of you," he spoke his thoughts aloud.

"What?"

"You have purpose and passion. You are real and whole and amazing." He continued. "This Sesshoumaru is nothing like that, has nothing like that."

"Then find yours," she replied simply. "Everyone has something that will drive them to accomplish great things. You just need to find yours."

"How?"

"I'll help you," she answered. "But until we've found yours, you can share in mine. It's big enough and you're already helping me with it."

There was truth in her words that he allowed to soothe him.


	7. Quiet Respite

Time for Sesshoumaru to take stock of himself. Time has passed, his life has changed and continues to change. He is learning about his mate but having a bit of difficulty incorporating what he's learned in his dealings with her. He hasn't even realized that some of their discussions about her life could apply to his in some big ways. But he has an inkling. It needs to percolate a little and he needs to do some very private thinking. Good thing he has the time in this chapter.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from the first chapter of Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Quiet Respite**

Since Sesshoumaru had never previously bothered to learn anything about most of the women he'd encountered beyond how best to get them out of their clothes, this completely platonic approach to his own mate was proving to be a true eye opener.

As foolish as it seemed, thinking back on it now, he could admit that he had believed the age old hype pertaining to females and their universal desires. He had tailored his plans to fit into that older maxim that all women desired to be swept off their feet by the spectacularly handsome and wealthy male of their dreams. This was generally followed by a huge ceremonial announcement of their newly attached state and the creation of unnumbered pups that proved their continued state of "Happily ever after".

Sesshoumaru had never imagined that a female could have other priorities to accomplish prior to seeking that state of domestic bliss. Most Japanese women, statistically speaking, sought higher education and the ghost of a career in order to meet men of higher socioeconomic class before settling on one and dropping out of the work force to eternally gloat over her wedded accomplishment by periodically baring young. Youkai females depended on their breeding to introduce them to the worthwhile males of their species to produce similar results. Generally, they all dreamed that their goal would be obtained under romantic conditions, "love at first sight" being a general favorite.

Apparently, the stereotype wasn't universal, or even marginally accurate. According to his mate, every female desired something different from her life in the same way that every male had unique goals of his own based on personality, family motivations, and past experience. Her roommate was a pointed example she enjoyed rubbing in his face. Her gay roommie certainly wasn't on the look out for any Miss Right, wasn't eager to have progeny, and wanted to work for non-profit medical organizations that traveled through third world countries. By contrast, his sister, whom his mate had met on more than one occasion, intended to go into politics, studied law, and refused to have more than one night stands.

Their mother had single-handedly supported their family respectably well, pursuing a career in a predominately male run industry and excelling at it. Their father was a stay at home writer who attended PTA meetings and campaigned for whichever charities struck his fancy.

His mate's Mother worked as a nurse despite her two kids and senile father-in-law who worked at the home shrine and met with other Buddhist priests to complain about everything younger than themselves. Her father, when he had been alive worked as a government consultant and often stayed far from home. His income would have provided enough for his wife to stay at home, but she'd worked even then all the same. Her little brother wanted to be a professional athlete on the National soccer team and his latest girlfriend planned to be a computer programmer because she could work from home if she had to.

Truly, taking a mate had provided him with a broader education than he'd ever imagined possible or ever received from his long history of attending the finest educational institutions. Sesshoumaru had never been so intimately exposed to the many varied dreams and goals of people. As an inu in a fairly small but prominent pack, there had been little opportunity to converse candidly with anyone as a young pup. He had been the one to allow it to remain a habit as an adult. Partly because he hadn't realize there was so much to enrich his relationships outside his pack, but mostly because he didn't know how to change it.

But he was learning.

Sesshoumaru lay sprawled across his crimson, satin sheets waiting for the phone to ring as the hours of the day crept by. He had absolutely no intention of moving or doing much of anything else today, for today was the day for lovers. Despite how other nations viewed the holiday, Sesshoumaru was a product of his culture, and in his culture Christmas was a holiday spent with a lover. As such Sesshoumaru had worked hard to talk his mate into calling him as soon as she made it home from her roommate's family gathering. It wouldn't be Christmas for him by then, but it was better than no contact at all.

She'd gone to the big old, small town, house with her roommate and his lover last night to participate in all the festivities apparently celebrated in a western country in relation to this holiday. The infamous Brett-san had quite forcefully insisted on her attendance since she wasn't allowed to go home. Her plans were to return sometime after lunch on Christmas day, her time, at her professors' behest.

She'd complained about her impending boredom as without her Brett-san to work with her she wasn't being scheduled at her part time job and with classes let out for the break and her chronic insomnia she was looking at a long stretch of empty hours to fill. With the holiday being what it was, she wouldn't even have much access to the local library to pick up new reading material.

So he'd tried to badger her into a promise to call. Unsuccessfully.

Or actually, she had almost promised to call until he'd tried to turn her promise into agreement of preplanned phone sex. Sesshoumaru was all but desperate.

He was inu for kami's sakes. Inu were never meant to go as long as he had without sexual release. Especially this inu, as he had, prior to his mating, generally fed his sexual appetite as often as the urge occurred to him. Being a normal, healthy inu that had naturally required several marathon sexual escapades in any given week. As a newly mated male his sexual appetite increased. Unfortunately, the one he wanted wasn't available to help him with his need.

Sesshoumaru could no longer remember what it was like to wake up feeling well rested. His nights were filled with arousing visions of all the things he'd done to his little mate in their one night or all the things he'd like to do to her delectable little body when he tracked her down someday. So when he woke in the morning, or often in the middle of the night, he was rock hard with no relief in sight. Most males would be able to see to the problem presented to him upon waking without necessarily involving any outside assistance. Not this mated inu, it appeared.

Without the scent of his female significantly thick in the air, Sesshoumaru could not find the pinnacle of physical pleasure and release. His only recourse was to pray that a cold shower offered him some painful relief.

And like every time he'd brought it up with her, his mate flippantly told him to take a lover. It was most frustrating. He hadn't told her then, like he probably wouldn't tell her now, he couldn't. Sesshoumaru really did need her scent in the air to achieve orgasm which was why he'd made the request of her he did.

He had finagled a gift from her. It had taken some fancy persuasion, reiterating the importance of scent to an inu which he was certain had been supported by her previous readings, but eventually he'd been successful. He wanted a garment from her that would be steeped in her personal scent. This limited what she could send him and he'd trusted her medical knowledge and common sense to realize that without Sesshoumaru spelling it out. She'd sent him a bra, which arrived yesterday still soaked in her scent, though it wasn't exactly what he'd wanted when he'd coaxed her underwear off her. Truly it was the scent that mattered most to him, although he'd been aiming for her panties. They would have been more thoroughly soaked in her scent and thus would've given him greater comfort for a longer period of time. Plus there was also the invigorating thought of laying hands on a garment that rode her body so close to where he most wished to be.

But it was better than the complete lack of anything with her scent Sesshoumaru had lived with before. The minute he'd opened the package yesterday and released her scent to stain the air of his penthouse apartment, Sesshoumaru's body had reacted.

It had taken iron control to not immediately seek self gratification. It was more important to do what he could to preserve her scent in the soft fabric. Sesshoumaru had no idea when he would next be able to coax such an important concession from his mate so he definitely had to see to it this treasure's comfort would last as long as possible.

The minute his task was completed, his sire called upon him to attend an evening conference with some business associates. Sesshoumaru barely had time to take a freezing shower before leaving to attend the mind-numbing event.

As usual, he spent the duration avoiding the other young heirs forced into company with him. Sesshoumaru had cultivated a rather detached manner that held all comers at the frigid outer borders of his concern. This night, he was a bit more taciturn than normal, given that most the others arrived with dates tittering gayly over Christmas plans and irritating his sensitive hearing.

His grumpier mood had even won him an icy glare sent his way from his sire. Thankfully, the event being what it was, prevented an exchange of words with the male that had dragged him away from the first bit of promised peace Sesshoumaru had been able to grasp in months.

He'd returned home so late, there was nothing for it but to strip off the restricting costume he was required to wear for these things and drop into his bed. Sesshoumaru was so tired he almost forgot to open the protective covering on her gift to flood his bedroom with the soft cloud of her scent before he slipped into unconsciousness.

Surprisingly, his sleep was deep and peaceful. For the first time since waking up to the abandonment of his mate, Sesshoumaru slept though the night. His dreams had been filled with the soothing and companionable sensation of a warm body lying trustingly beside him. It was a warm and elusive sensation he couldn't remember ever knowing previously, even as a pup. There was a sense of security - illusory, obviously, but the feeling was nice.

Sesshoumaru woke up slowly to the sun streaming through his panoramic window and immediately decided not to get out of bed if he didn't have to. He'd never before had a lazy day and had only heard of them recently from his mate. Even then, he hadn't quite understood the appeal of indolently lounging about doing nothing. But then, he'd never felt quite as comfortably mellow as he did today. Neither had he ever slept in quite so late without strenuous exertion in the bedroom the night before. More so than his regular marathon sessions, closer to the effort and time spent the night of his somewhat disastrous mating.

Sesshoumaru languidly shifted position and watched the gray clouds roil and pool outside the wide glass window. Sometime in the late afternoon, snow began to fall in the slow drifting way that most imagined when picturing Christmas snowfall. An hour later, it started to come down a little harder as the day waxed into the early darkness of winter.

After the city lights started to stain the canopy of snow filled clouds, Sesshoumaru got hungry and was obliged to leave the warm comfort of his bed to search out his kitchen. He didn't bother with the lights or covering his nudity. He was alone, it was Christmas and he seldom allowed himself to indulge. Mostly because, every interlude spent in his personal apartment had a finite and definite end either due to expecting a summons from his sire and alpha, or an appointment already set to call him away.

The heir of such a large business franchise seldom had time without demands on it. But he knew today there could be no last minute calls from his alpha, for even in Tokyo, very few CEOs would put up with the business intrigues Taishou Hiroyuki played, not on Christmas. Too many of them knew better than that.

The males may run most of the businesses that his alpha competed and negotiated with, but all were affiliated with some female or other and thus all were required to spend this day with their respective females. It occurred to Sesshoumaru to wonder which female the esteemed Taishou was spending his evening with this night. It was no secret that Izayoi and Sesshoumaru's own mother were both still attached to the inu multi-billionaire. It was a favorite topic in a number of the so-called gossip rags.

As a boy, Sesshoumaru hadn't realized how unusual his family circumstances were until Izayoi managed to birth the whelp, Inuyasha. Before then, all three of his parents had doted on him equally. In naive childish fashion, he believed his mother and his father loved him and Izayoi loved him because she couldn't have any other children of her own. Those were happy days, or as happy as Sesshoumaru could ever remember his days being. Even then, those days always held a hint of sadness, a sort of longing in Izayoi's eyes and a cold distance in his father's at all times.

It wasn't until Izayoi's pregnancy made the rounds of the tabloids that Sesshoumaru learned the truth behind his conception. He was born for a purpose other than just to show the love of his parents with each other. More than that, he learned his own mother had birthed him only for what she could gain. Why she remained with his father after that, Sesshoumaru had never bothered to ask, though he was certain it was due to some level of attachment to his sire. Females were strange that way.

Sesshoumaru was certain that if there were a way for an inu to take two mates, his father would have marked both females, for as surely as he drew breath, Taishou Hiroyuki had no intention of letting either female free of him. It did not surprise him, for inu were possessive to a fault. Males especially so. What so disgusted him, if disgust were the right term, is that both females allowed their male to hold on to both. They cheapened themselves, as his mate would say, by doing so.

As a boy, he hadn't understood the complexities of a romantic relationship between adults. As an adult, he couldn't understand how the three of them had allowed their lives to become a three ring circus for the most creative writer to paint in increasing depravity and lurid hues of lust and, if the respective author were feeling kind, love. Sesshoumaru sneered at the thought. But he was no better.

Sesshoumaru had crafted an image in the public eye of reckless drunkenness. The difference, he generally told himself in times past, was that he was not actually mated to any of the women he'd allowed to be pictured beside himself. He had been single and living the life of the young, famous, and wealthy. He'd never dreamed his behavior would be turned on him so blatantly when he achieved his purpose for building such a reputation.

Sesshoumaru drew his thoughts away from the tangled mess of his family bonds and public behavior amazed that the darkness had drawn his thoughts down such long avoided corridors. But he supposed, that was the point of a truly lazy day, to think about all the things you hadn't time to think of before.

His mate had a cathartic way of drawing his thoughts from the buzzing life of a pseudo-celebrity poised to unwillingly take over the business world to the slower quieter hum of more personal paths. She, Sesshoumaru had learned over time, made a point to think seriously on a number of more emotional topics that he'd never had the stomach to do himself. The result, he'd found, was a truer tranquility than he'd ever attempted to portray. She was solid in her skin, comfortable and accepting of all her flaws. Not that he was ever willing to believe she had any beyond her unwillingness to return to him.

But after her anecdotal reason for the distance between them, he could no longer argue that point. He had a hanyou half brother himself. And while Sesshoumaru had long blamed the shattering of what had been the illusion of a happy family on Inuyasha, he never wished him dead. Truthfully, he sort of felt it would be an insult to the power of his father's blood if Inuyasha ever succumbed to the same type of thing as her childhood friend. As such, he was proud of her for making the effort to prevent it from happening.

Knowledge, as they say, is power.

Around midnight, Sesshoumaru left off his gazing out the window and his thoughts of the mysterious nuances of his Alpha's romances and decided to take a shower. It was the first time since the morning after marking his mate that the water running down his body was warm enough to create the steam necessary to fog the mirror. He stood there as the water ran down his shoulders reveling in the sweet warmth that pounded over his back and swept through his lengthening silver hair heedless of the time that passed.

Showers were magical places, his mate had told him. Something in the mix of steam and water and relaxation became quiet reflection and soft revelation. He hadn't understood what she meant when she said it. All Sesshoumaru's recent experiences with showers were unpleasant freezing episodes in attempt to bring down his swelling need. He'd only stood under the spray long enough to achieve his purpose before gratefully turning off the cold water. After half a year of going without it, there was no way for him to take the hot water for granted. And his mate's words slowly made sense as his skin became gradually acclimated to the heat.

With the stream of steady water and the release of what little tension was left in his shoulders drained away, it occurred to him that the shower itself contained no magic beyond the reality that there was little to distract him from his thoughts. The motions of bathing required little conscious attention, leaving much of the mind to wander over other things. Such as his mate's suggestion that he take a class that had little to do with his rather concrete future.

Sesshoumaru had never been able to keep his lack of ambition in regards to his future from his mate. Whether he just tried to keep it out of conversation beyond letting her know about his plans for the evening beyond their precious phone calls or his attempt to avoid talking about his classes, she picked up on the lack of enthusiasm. He supposed it wasn't terribly difficult to pick up on such a thing for her, who went about everything in her day eager to tackle any obstacle she encountered. The lack of such in himself was just one more thing to point at and show how much of a mismatch he was for her.

How was Sesshoumaru to woo her back to his side when he kept proving himself insufficient. After her great disclosure concerning the very emotional decision to pursue her current medical career, he had even been so foolish as to inform her of the great discrepancies between them as individuals.

Instead of spurning him as he was certain she would do the minute he'd realized what he'd told her, she'd offered to help him grow as a person. She told him that passion can take many forms be they quiet or bold, private or public. Sometimes people, like his mate, are allowed to make their dream into a career, but most could only pursue the things they truly enjoyed as a hobby.

Sesshoumaru didn't have a hobby and had never attempted to pursue anything beyond what was required of him. She'd seemed worried when he told her that. His mate told him that hobbies and passions were the best way to release stress. They helped to maintain sanity in a world all too full of random insanity. Seeing an opportunity to try and persuade her to reveal her present location, he'd tried to convince her that most inu found their comfort in the presence of their mate.

His mate had actually scoffed at that. She had argued that sex was not always the answer to everything, least of all his forecast of problems. And while he could possibly ease some of his stress through the company of a lover (the term drew a growl of frustration from him), the results would be a temporary band-aid for his bigger issues. The truest comfort to be had in a real relationship was of course, being able to relate one person to another. And there was no such thing as an interesting relate-able person without a passion or interest that could be discussed or shared with another. His mate believed that part of the reason divorce was so prevalent in today's world was because of a distinct lack of maintaining connection with all the things that had made them individuals prior to wedding.

It was hard to keep the same interest in a housewife that had been found in an ambitious artist or lawyer or teacher or idealist. Just as it was difficult to find the same intrigue in the beleaguered white collar man that had been out to change the world, or play his music or fix up his cars. Passion for something was the spark that drew people to each other and while necessity often required a body to cut back on the amount of time spent pursuing those individual passions, they shouldn't be dropped entirely.

She'd made up her mind that he needed something beyond his eminent position as a CEO. He expressed a want in his person of something he could be passionate about and so she'd taken to brainstorming possible suggestions for his down time. Her latest suggestion had been that he take up art, and like all her other suggestions, Sesshoumaru had neglected to give it real consideration. Until the shower drove him to really ponder her choice and the reasons she gave for it.

His mate had decided that whatever he did had best be creative in nature. His business endeavors were mostly given to tearing down the hard work of others therefore his off time should be spent building up something to help balance that out. Sports and Athleticism were out because, while she believed he would be good at them and possibly even enjoy the exercise, he was unlikely to grow passionate about something that had limited potential to grow with him. She'd also, by the same token, eliminated starting a collection of pretty much anything since youkai lived a long time and Sesshoumaru wasn't the type to hold on to or collect anything he couldn't use. Sentimental, he wasn't.

His mate had laughingly ruled out the pursuit of music due to his inu hearing and the inevitable discordant sounds of every beginner on an instrument. Thinking back on his younger days in his private schools, the halls echoing with the efforts of some classmate or other attempting to master a violin or piano, Sesshoumaru had equally agreed.

So she had suggested art.

Sesshoumaru had never considered art as something he would enjoy, and nobody else had ever thought to suggest it to him either, but he couldn't argue with her reasoning. Sesshoumaru was already long used to the smell of graphite and ink from their long usage in his school work. Chalk was hardly more irritating. Water colours, if he progressed that far presented little issue. And that was only the logical extension from the beginner drawing and sketching that typically marked a new interest in art.

Perhaps his mate had chosen well for him. Even if she did tease him that once he got beyond stick figures he could draw nude models. At this point the only nude model he was interested in was a female that lived half a world away and wore his mark under her clothing.

Sesshoumaru turned off the water in the shower when it started to chill and reached for the fluffy towel on the rack. Diligently he removed the excess water from his skin and long hair before once again sprawling naked over the crimson sheets of his bed. The impact of his body with the bed sent up a cloud of scent infused with that of his mate causing his body once more to react. He fought off the urge to attempt to do something about it before his mate called. With his luck, she would call before he finished and would easily pick up on what he was doing. The smirk that curled his lips was slightly rueful as he remembered that long ago call he made following one of the first of his almost wet dreams. There was no doubt in his mind that she wouldn't appreciate it.

As if in answer to his thoughts, the magical sound of his phone ringing cut through the settled silence of his apartment and Sesshoumaru answered its summons swiftly, pleased at this call like he never was when the caller was his sire.

"Hello, my mate," Sesshoumaru growled that low instinctive rumble designed to entice his mate into carnality.

"Merry Christmas, Taishou-san," her warm voice answered from the other side of the world.


	8. Secret Valentines

It always amuses me when people beg to know what's going to happen. Warnings as to pacing and length just aren't getting through. So I'm going to drop bald broad hints and be explicit. Kagome and Sesshoumaru will not be meeting up before Kagome establishes some working form of hanyou medicine. This will take years. Standard medical programs require three years of intensive study followed by one year tailing behind a supervising physician to gain exposure to the various types of medicine. Upon completion of that one year, a student will select a specialty and arrange a residency position at a hospital that supports the learning of the specialty. Kagome's specialty is already selected but doesn't exist as a program anywhere so she would have to select a hospital that will see a relatively high admission rate of her target patients.

She needs to develop theories how the mixing of youkai and human would develop an immune system, how it would fight disease, how a doctor could support that immune system's efforts. She needs to test her theories safely. This will all take time, years of time. They will not meet again for years. Stop asking. A relationship will not blossom over night and I don't write short stories. There are many things to be learned on both sides and rampant distrust from both sides to overcome.

Beyond that, Sesshoumaru's familial relationships are not close. There's no real affection there and only a tentative connection with Inuyasha due to the circumstances surrounding the birth of both males. Sesshoumaru was conceived because His father's mate, Izayoi, hadn't yet managed to conceive and carry a healthy babe to term. He was created due to contract with a woman selected merely to birth the heir. What all that contract entails has never been discussed with Sesshoumaru but we know enough about his mother to know she's a social climber and she's still part of the family as a second female, almost second mate. Inuyasha was a miracle baby in that he was even born. His birth eliminated the need for Sesshoumaru to exist at all because, if not for Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha would be heir regardless of his mixed genetics. This was explained in the last chapter. Sesshoumaru has never known happy family relations towards himself. Love is not part of his equation.

Please pay closer attention in future, I'm giving you all the information. Stop ignoring it. Thank you.

Now, for the chapter. Sesshoumaru's about to get himself into a lot of trouble. But then, he's a guy, it was bound to happen!

On a side note, I'm on vacation for the next week...kind of forced vacation, but it's time to myself all the same. What does that mean for you? Nothing much. I plan to sleep a lot the first day, possibly get some writing done. I do not plan to update any earlier than usual, you're just stuck with the schedule as it stands.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Secret Valentines**

Kagome fussed with the gourmet cookies she'd purchased to help dress up the rather plain looking cake. Idly rearranging the little two toned discs in effort to find the most appealing arrangement on the plate, she moved around the table filling the edges of the plate.

Valentines day was coming up, and while Kagome had never failed to celebrate the holiday in time honored Japanese tradition it had never been for the usual romantic reasons.

Kagome always gave away chocolates to anybody she could find a viable reason to. But it was never due to amorous intentions. She did it simply because making those chocolates helped to fill the hours she spent awake every night. She'd made chocolates for her family and her classmates all through her middle school and high school years. Her confections had grown more and more elaborate and delicate until she'd realized her mother was worrying that Kagome wasn't spending time on anything else. Then she'd started to hold back.

After high school graduation, Kagome'd had fewer people to gift on Valentines day. You didn't exactly have a set class of thirty or so people in college. Besides, by the time people reached college, amorous connotations couldn't be escaped from the gifting of chocolate unless it was to roommates, long term friends, and family.

This year she had Taishou Sesshoumaru on her list because the excuse was there. She wasn't in love with him, didn't even particularly like him, but there was a relationship between them. She was his friend, though he would claim more intimacy and so, as a friend he had deserved something for the holiday like all her other friends.

It had been fun trying to think up something she could make Taishou-san for Valentines day since chocolates were out of the question. Inu youkai were notoriously allergic to chocolate, though not so much that it would kill them. Kagome liked a challenge, and she was determined to send him something if for no other reason than that.

Luckily, Kagome already had a treat she'd wanted to attempt creating.

During her brief sojourn over the Christmas holiday, her roommate's family had produced as part of their family feast a particularly intriguing cake she'd never even heard of. It wasn't much to look at by itself. The finished cake was mostly just brown from the caramelized sugars in the batter and fruit. What had surprised Kagome, was that, despite the fruit involved in both the naming and baking of the cake, it did not taste overwhelmingly of it. A Japanese confection so named would taste as close to the original flavors in the identifying fruit as humanly possible as to taste of almost nothing else. Foreign countries it seemed, cared not for the natural, inherent flavor notes as much as creating new and different flavors to enjoy from the combinations of different things.

Kagome had done a bit of looking on-line for a really good recipe and tried them out on her ever so willing roommate a couple times in the last few weeks. Her original intent had nothing to do with her Inu caller. She'd just wanted something to do and baking was a quiet enough task that she could do it while Brett-san slept.

She'd put off her cake baking efforts to whip up the usual chocolate confections for her family, her professors, and her roommate and his boyfriend. But she'd been fairly well stumped on what to give Taishou Sesshoumaru. Chocolate was out and all Kagome had been able to think of were the gourmet dog cookies you could buy at the store.

There was no way she would try baking such things from scratch. Kagome perfected her baking efforts through taste-testing, and pork and bacon flavored two tone cookies did not appeal. And she very much doubted they appealed to Brett and Louis-san either. Such adventurous forays into baking would have to wait until she had a full time canine mouth to try them out on.

But buying the dog cookies, while a thoughtful gift for an inu youkai, just hadn't seemed like enough since she hadn't made them herself.

Then last week during one of Taishou-san's near daily calls, he'd expressed an old unfulfilled desire to study abroad when he was younger. Kagome took this to mean he'd wanted to step out of the world he'd known and explore a bit. Experience new things on his own without the overshadowing presence of his immediate family. He'd obviously not done so, as his situation apparently demanded his presence remain in Japan, but Kagome was in a foreign country and trying new things and she could just as easily share some of those things with him.

No other member of her family had desired such. Her grandfather generally spoke of all things foreign with distrust and her mother expressed no curiosity over the differences between Japan and her daughter's current home. Sota was absolutely convinced he already knew all about it and didn't want to know different. So Kagome had stuck with the traditional homemade chocolates for her family, but for Taishou Sesshoumaru, she made him something she'd doubted he'd ever even heard of.

Finally accepting that there was really very little more she could do to dress up her Pineapple upside down cake, Kagome picked up the camera Taishou-san bought her for New Year.

When Kagome had talked the big inu into taking up art, specifically drawing, she'd decided to support him by taking up photography. Oh she wasn't going to get really serious about it, originally. The chemicals for developing film were expensive, but she was more than willing to take tons of digital pictures and send them to him for drawing practice. Knowing he would most likely start with still life, she'd sent appropriate pictures.

Taking pictures of produce at the grocery store or desert displays in restaurants had been her first personal assignments. As filler shots, she took pictures of the tree growing in the courtyard of the complex. When the snows finally melted she'd probably start catching the flowers and other greenery coming alive.

Being Japanese, Kagome admired and respected every period of nature, from the lush green growth of spring, to the barren silent slumber of deepest winter. Watching the progress of those seasons was an ingrained habit and serenity inducing activity. Having never been in this country to watch those seasons change before had left her with a strong interest in the possible differences from her homeland. Summer had been cooler than she was used to, Autumn prolonged and far more colorful. Winter was lingering and frigid leaving her breathless with anticipation for the coming of spring.

Occasionally she discussed the differences between Japanese seasons and the ones she was experiencing for the first time with her inu caller. She was always very careful not to indicate where these seasons were taking place, though she supposed he could be certain she was in the same hemisphere eleven to thirteen hours away by lines of longitude, which was still a pretty large slice of territory.

Snapping pictures of her cake and cookies from just about every angle she could get, Kagome danced about the table trying to find the best lighting for the job. She would sort through the images later for the best one and delete the rest before sending the memory stick to Tokyo in the package with the cake and cookies carefully arranged to keep from damage. She was also planning to send a note and an extra little secret something already safely buried in her homemade pastry.

That little something extra was a little risque for something being sent to a simple friend, but she'd managed to get over her misgivings and stick it in anyway. She tried to think of it as kind of flirting. Not that she was particularly prone to flirting with anyone before now. She wondered if adding it to a Valentines gift was too much? Oh well, too late to change her mind.

Now that it was in place, there was no turning back without demolishing the cake to get to it. She shifted anxiously from foot to foot just thinking about it.

There was no question in her mind that her Valentines day offering would be well received even if he hated the cake and was insulted by the dog cookies. That impulsive little extra would see to it and squirming over her decision to send it was pointless. Kagome took a deep breath.

Taishou-san wouldn't find anything untoward or overly familiar about her gifts, if anything he was liable to be elated, even if she was trying not to have too many second thoughts. She hoped he would simply see it as harmless flirting being a consummate flirt himself, but somehow, she didn't think he would. Kagome sharply shook her head at her thoughts as she set down the camera and set about packing up the goodies. What was the worst that could happen? Taishou Sesshoumaru would get overly amorous and what? Molest her through the phone?

He didn't know where she was and therefore the repercussions were limited.

Carefully placing the loaded cake and store bought Gourmet dog cookies in a mailing box, Kagome resolved not to think about it until she heard Taishou Sesshoumaru-san's reaction. Then she'd do something about it. With that in mind, she picked up her camera and headed to her computer to sort through the pictures for the ones she wanted to send. After that, she had a note to write before sealing up the package and running down to the post office to send it out with the rest of her Valentines deliveries.

* * *

Sesshoumaru seldom received packages of any consequence at his apartment. Most of his mail went through a sorting facility at his father's office to fleece out the excess spam and various letters from would-be lovers. Then he would generally run over to pick it up from there. Very few people had his actual mailing address as his actual apartment number was known only to the building staff paid for their discretion.

So it was actually a surprise when the attendant in the lobby waved him over to the front desk upon his return from his morning classes. The lunch hour was approaching and traffic was starting to build up, but inside the residential building all was quiet so there was nothing standing in his way.

"Package for you, sir," the day time attendant announced, setting a sizable cardboard box on the desk beside the guest log. With quiet efficiency perfected by working with demanding wealthy residents, she quickly had him sign for it before returning to her other duties.

Upon brief inspection of the parcel, he found only his address written in increasingly familiar flowing characters and Sesshoumaru almost grinned like a small child spotting his brand new red bike just waiting for him. It was from his most elusive mate. Not wanting to risk opening it in public given what her last package larger than an envelop had contained, he somehow managed to board the elevator and waited for the arrival of the top floor without tearing it open with eager claws. He even kept off it long enough to unlock his front door. Then all bets were off as he dropped his bag with a fairly resonant thump and dashed for the kitchen, sharp claws already beginning to reveal the box's secretive innards.

The surprisingly decorative packing material began to rain down over his floor like confetti leaving a trail of pink and red over his white carpet on his way to the kitchen. Under the first layer of colored paper he found a quaint little Valentines card and he smiled.

Sesshoumaru had never suffered a lack of gifts or admirers on Valentines day before. In fact the slew of tokens he tended to receive had grown to be almost hazardous to his and the delivery worker's health. It was amazing how many people failed to remember the physical effects of chocolates on inu youkai. He was confident that his highly intelligent and considerate mate had sent him something he could enjoy, even if it came with nothing more than the memory stick and short cryptic note. But a box full of red and pink paper would hardly have been necessary for such a simple gift, so Sesshoumaru set them aside and began searching out any other contents amidst the colorful packing. He followed his nose to a package of bi-colored cookies that smelled mouth-wateringly of meat. Inside the plastic bag used to reseal the package was another short note explaining their presence, not that he needed an explanation.

Sesshoumaru was inu. Secretly, he believed that inu youkai were the reason gourmet dog cookies had first been introduced and then gained such wide spread popularity. No way were people buying them for common mongrel pets. Such simple creatures didn't have the wherewithal to properly appreciate the finer textures and flavor undertones as an inu did. Truth be told, Sesshoumaru loved the dog cookies though he seldom ever got to partake of them. He'd never risk public exposure of such a potentially problematic vice, so his only source was the off chance that someone thought to gift him some.

Prior to this, Inuyasha was his only supplier, and that only once a year on the anniversary of the elder inu's birth. What made it even stranger was that the hanyou was the only person ever to remember to give him anything for his birthday once he graduated from high school and prior to that every gift from his pack he'd received had been related to his future position as CEO of his father's company.

Sesshoumaru imagined the brat intended them as a goof as every year the gift was generally accompanied by various other pet paraphernalia along the lines of squeaky toys and leashes. Sesshoumaru responded in kind with dog kennels and spiked collars. Once, he'd even gifted Inuyasha with a muzzle. The hanyou had grumbled about it but, Sesshoumaru was certain, no significant feelings were hurt and no other member of the pack was aware of the exchange. At least, not to his knowledge.

His mate had intended no insult or second snide meaning. What he knew of her told Sesshoumaru that she wasn't the type. She'd intended it in good faith to be a thoughtful gift, something he could partake of with similar connotations to most gifts given and received on Valentines day. As such, the cookies tickled his fancy more than the ones from Inuyasha ever had.

There was still plenty of room left in the box, and after popping one of the bi-color cookies in his mouth, Sesshoumaru continued his investigation and found a saran wrapped cake with another note. Intrigued, he carefully worked at the plastic coating the soft cake, having never encountered a "Pineapple Upside Down Cake" let alone one with "buried treasure". The scent of it intrigued him, there was pineapple and brown sugar, but they weren't the most potent scents as his society had accustomed him to expecting of a product that is named for one ingredient. The pineapples were obviously included as they rested on the outside of one perfectly golden surface of the cake.

Sesshoumaru wasn't particularly partial to sweets and confections, but his mate had made this unusual temptation and he intended to treat it with care and respect, even if he hated the taste. She had put a lot of thought and took enough effort to make him something, no way he was going to ruin that needlessly. It was proof that she felt better about him than she had at the start. Or so he intended to believe.

To be truthful, he hadn't expected to receive anything from her for Valentines day. She had not expressed any real admiration or adoration. Or even simple liking. Certainly she talked to him, laughed at him, encouraged him in his amateur efforts in art, but that was all mostly impersonal on her part. It was like she was his therapist only without the high price tag and expensive leather couch. This was amazing confirmation that she was more than just a concerned ear.

Just the cookies, the pictures and the cake would have been enough for him. Hell just the cookies would have won his affections for life. Luckily he was already mated to the woman so he wouldn't be tempted to stray.

Still, his mate had sent him a little bit more. A buried treasure to sweeten his Valentine. Sesshoumaru had no idea what could be better than his secret pleasure, a homemade gift and a new set of pictures that allowed him a small insight to the ever mysterious personality of his mate. But there was more and he was more eager to find it than he was to sample her cooking or snack on more of the gourmet cookies that smelled so tantalizing.

Two steps took him to the cupboard to retrieve a plate large enough to hold the cake, one more brought him to the block that housed his set of knives. Choosing a suitable blade, he set to precisely slicing the round baked good into equal sized pieces. Sesshoumaru was dying to know what else was in the cake, what hidden ingredient her note had hinted at, but he held himself back from rendering his mate's creation to mere crumbs in his search. Miraculously he managed to miss nicking the plastic bag and its mystery contents.

In the end Sesshoumaru reduced a single piece of the cake to mere crumbs, his golden eyes intent on the shimmering white flashing out at him from the clear plastic. It was almost too much for him to open the little sac in the intended way, but he didn't dare risk damaging his prize. Perhaps this is what children felt when they found the small toys in candies and such. He'd never had the experience himself, but he knew – in a sort of detached way – that such was common.

The white material burst from the plastic the minute he managed to undo the closure and released the seal on the clear plastic bag. The first rush of air sent a cloud of scent out to engulf Sesshoumaru's senses and sent his eyes rolling back into his head. The physical reaction was faster than his ability to process just what exactly was perfuming the air.

Trapped in the fine threads of gossamer thin white cloth, was the scent of his far distant mate, but this was a more intense experience than her gifting him her previously worn bra at Christmas. That undergarment had been saturated in her scent and supplied the necessary aroma therapy to preserve his precarious hold on sanity. This was something else entirely.

Most clothing worn throughout the day was full of contact scents from casual brushes against various surfaces and people. His mates bra had been permeated with her sweet perfume, but it had also smelled of generic pollutants, antiseptic and the scents of what he assumed were her roommate, classmates, and a few professors. This was entirely different.

The ice white, thin, shimmery garment sprayed across his lap scented of nothing but his mate, something fruity for a body wash and something herbal for her hair. The aroma was potent, as though she had put it on immediately after bathing several times without washing it in between and removed it prior to encountering anybody else or leaving her home. It was a great deal more pure than her previous gift and the reaction the little garment received was reflective of that fact.

Sesshoumaru's knees had actually gone weak and given out under him before he had managed to completely identify what he held against him. When he landed on the floor, the white baby doll night gown had caught on the instant coat hanger strangled inside his trousers. The claws of one hand absently dug gouges into his pristine kitchen floor while the other aimed to scoop up the shimmery cloth seemingly clinging to that part of him that was desperate to spear into the woman that owned it. Within two minutes, he was desperately close to embarrassing himself on the floor.

A sudden, but expected alarm chimed from his pocket signaling the time to make his daily call to the author of his current state of physical unrest. Before his fuzzy brain could talk him out of it, Sesshoumaru had retrieved the phone and hit the send button on autopilot.

It rang twice before she picked up. "Hey, hold on just a minute," her beleaguered voice echoed across the world. It wasn't the first time she had stalled him after answering the phone. Occasionally, he caught her at work, which generally made for a lot of noise in the background and short conversation in the foreground. This time, the noise in the background was of a singular source. There was one male voice that responded to her request to excuse herself.

"But it's cold out there," was heard through the somewhat mumbled conversation that let him know his mate was stepping outside into the elements for privacy.

"I know it's cold out there," was her louder reply in response. "It's winter. I just need to stretch my legs. You just finish your movie and I'll be back before it's time to start the next one."

"Okay," her voice came louder in his ear. "Sorry about that. Brett-san's plans for a romantic dinner with his boyfriend kind of fell through this afternoon. Louis-san had a family emergency. His little sister got into a skiing accident and the hospital they shipped her to is out of her blood type."

"So her big brother raced to the rescue," Sesshoumaru finished for her.

"Pretty much," She agreed. "Their mother could have been a donor, but she's been undergoing Chemo therapy." Which naturally made donating a very bad idea for the mother.

"Hn," Sesshoumaru acknowledged the information. He was aware of the side effects of Chemo having recently helped her study such for one of her classes. What he didn't understand is why his mate wasn't sitting at home alone given the situation. "Could not Brett-san have attended his lover on this mission to save the life of the girl?"

"Well, it gets complicated," she answered with a halting sigh. "Louis-san hasn't actually told his family about his proclivity for other boys. It wouldn't be such a good thing to show up at a family emergency and drop such a bomb with boyfriend in tow."

"Hn," was all Sesshoumaru could respond with. He was having a difficult time thinking around the pain below his belly and one of his hands seemed to have a mind of its own. It kept rubbing slowly over the straining bulge in his pants regardless of what she talked about. It was slowly beginning to sink in just how much trouble he was in.

"Brett-san is pretty upset about it, you'd almost think it was _his_ little sister lying in critical condition somewhere," she mumbled to the side.

"Perhaps the situation is similar to him. His lover is away from his side, in need of support and comfort and he is denied the right to provide such," Sesshoumaru made the effort at coherent pertinent conversation. Probably not the wisest attempt he could have made since the subject could turn nasty very quickly given the similarities to his own situation where his mate would not acknowledge him in common society either. Granted, the similarity ended there. Brett and Louis were in a mutual relationship whereas he was forced to resort to self-gratification with articles of her discarded clothing because he had marked her against her will and seduced her chemically.

"Perhaps," she conceded tersely. "In any case, he's terribly depressed. And whenever Brett-san is feeling down he resorts to Rogers and Hammerstein movies and red wine."

"And this is bad?" he couldn't help inquiring. Seemed a harmless enough coping method to him and he doubted such would change with the full usage of his brain.

"Not if he's only feeling a little blue. But this kind of upset leads to a marathon of movies, which in turn increases his over all intake of alcohol." She chuckled dryly, "Last time he went for the marathon kind of cheering up, Brett-san landed in the hospital with alcohol poisoning. So I am chaperoning." There was now a minute regular clicking of her teeth together relaying just how cold she was becoming. "I'm making him mix his wine with fruit juice and drink a glass of water between each movie. I'm hoping I can talk him out of watching the remake of _State Fair_ as the next movie."

"Not a fan?"

"Not when we've just watched the original version already," She sniffed. "Beyond that, it's not so bad. Most of the movies are designed to make you feel better, with happy endings and jaunty tunes. Granted, part of the charm is lost when you don't know the meaning of most of the lines. I am proficient in English, but sometimes dialects throw me off and a strange turn of phrase fails to have the same connotations."

"Hn," Sesshoumaru was in trouble. It was valentines day, his mate had sent him a box full of goodies – including a nighty full of her clean scent – and her voice was in his ear. He wasn't going to last much longer and his brain couldn't convince his body that he wanted to.

"Oh, well," she breathed gently. "It's not like I had better plans for tonight than babysitting my depressed roommate anyway."

"No? You did not expect to hear from this Sesshoumaru upon receiving your package?" he tried to distract himself and her, though the endeavor was definitely impossible. It was growing even more impossible to hide the effect all this stimulus was having on his breathing. Much longer and she would be able to tell what he was doing.

"I expected to spend much of the evening in a theater watching movies after the library closed while Brett and Louis-san had their romantic interlude here. I wasn't really expecting your call until much later since the library and the theater require cellphones be turned off," she told him wryly. "I figured that would give you enough time to get certain things out of your system."

"Such as?" he had the gall to ask through gasping pants.

"You are in a state aren't you?" she observed blandly. Warning flags went up in his brain but the rest of him wasn't paying attention. His peak was too close. "Perhaps in future I'll be certain to leave my phone off the minute you receive a package from me to spare myself this nonsense."

Sesshoumaru would have protested her ever shutting down his only line of access to her but his release hit him right then and it took all he had to keep most of his growl of satisfaction to himself.

"Right," she concluded mildly. "I'm glad one of us enjoyed his Valentines day, now if you'll excuse me I have to go back to chaperoning my roommate."

The click and dial tone buzzing in his ear as he came down from his high left a hollow feeling in his chest. Somehow, despite the evidence of orgasm soaking into his pants, he felt cheated of his ecstasy as though it were empty without the accompaniment of her feminine version of the same.

Regardless of how he felt, it was finally beginning to sink in that he might possibly be in some serious trouble after this stunt. Sesshoumaru knew she wasn't too keen on the mere idea of phone sex and he'd just subjected her to a one-sided version of that without warning or her consent.

Would he never learn?


	9. The Fight

Guest reviewers are frustrating, especially when they ask questions I can't answer directly. Kagome is in Canada. Brett Speaks English when talking to Kagome because she hasn't learned French. Sesshoumaru knows English, which is why he understood what Brett said to Kagome in the last chapter. English is spoken in many countries where it isn't particularly native. Given the time difference, he can assume Kagome is in Canada or the US, which wouldn't really help him find her because that is a lot of territory to cover. He knew this just based off the time difference before. the Time difference will vary based on the time of year, whether or not one is in a country that adopted the use of daylight savings time. Many countries didn't. It also depends on a how a country handled the geographic spread of their own people. India set the same time for their whole country despite the many different lines of Longitude that pass through it. Just an example.

Sesshoumaru's starting point based on the language used in the back ground and the time difference leaves him a slice of two to three lines of longitude the length of the Northern Hemisphere. But anything discovered via the phone is off limits for tracking Kagome down, he promised as such.

And then I get a review that's offers nothing but support and my frustration changes because I cannot thank them directly.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**The Fight**

The phone rang cheerily from her pocket as she placed the latest coffee concoction on the bar in front of her. Kagome sighed before stepping back for a minute to pull out her cell.

Technically, the company policy on employee cellphone usage while on duty was a firm rule that personal calls should be limited to breaks. Most of Kagome's coworkers turned theirs off to avoid the temptation of a sudden ring from a pocket or belt. Some left the little communication devices in the supplied lockers. Kagome did not and her supervisors and boss had suffered some difficulty bending the rules for her. At first.

But Kagome didn't take regular breaks and only had the one caller, and despite her refusal to jump at the chance to live in a gilded tower like a well valued pet, she would never not answer when he called. She just wasn't that cruel.

Kagome had only been teasing on Valentines day when she'd said she would turn off her phone for the library or the theater. Truth be told, the movie she'd been planning to go see had been out for months and would likely be empty besides her. As for the library, well, the librarians knew her well by now and kindly allowed her to keep her cellphone on that late in the evening on that night of the week as there were seldom any other patrons to disturb. She'd been teasing him, sort of.

Kagome really was upset that he'd chosen to pursue such an activity while on the phone with her. She'd expressed, on more than one occasion, her general disapprobation for any such activities. She really wasn't interested in phone sex. Listening to him jack off classified as a sexual act pursued while on the phone and therefore fell under the same heading as phone sex. Thus she didn't want to hear it.

That Taishou Sesshoumaru chose to do it anyway showed a distinct disrespect for her feelings on the subject. She'd let him slide with the innuendos, the teasing, and the continued attempts to persuade her differently because words were not something she had a problem with. But basically forcing her to hear the sounds and movements while he achieved masturbatory bliss was on par with their first real meeting, the night the inu had chemically seduced her and marked her without asking. Only it was worse, because now he knew better.

Kagome was pretty certain Taishou-san was aware of just how great her displeasure was with his actions. They hadn't shared a call longer than fifteen minutes since Valentines day nearly a month before.

He might have been able to write it off the first couple weeks as being due to mid terms and her desperate need to study, except Kagome had never hung up on him to study before. In fact, she usually let the inu help her study over the phone. Taishou-san worked hard to keep up with where she was in her classes just so he could quiz her effectively on her subjects. He was better than flash cards.

Kagome picked up the call before it could ring again and spoke briskly into the receiver. "Hey, I'm at work," despite being so brusque, she knew he wouldn't just hang up and let her get back to doing what she was paid for.

"Please, mate," Taishou-san begged from the other end of the line. "This Sesshoumaru is sor-"

Kagome grit her teeth and cut him off, "I really need to be getting back to work, Taishou-san."

Her first reaction to his behavior Valentines day truly had been incredulous disgust. However, under and after that feeling had lost some of it's heat she had found herself _minutely_ flattered that her little last minute addition to the cake had been so uncontrollably well received. Kagome, to her knowledge, had never before incited a male to the ungovernable urge to touch himself. Granted, she wasn't sure she wanted to know if she had and would rather have not really known now. Taishou-san usually had a gift for stating his desire and need in a more flattering way without being so crude. Given a choice, she'd much rather hear about how much he desired to do something than to actually hear him do it.

"Mate-" he tried again.

"We're really busy right now, I have to go," she interrupted him again and hung up. It wasn't a lie. It was a Friday night, and the academic crowd was hollering for more booze and java in an ever increasing din. It wasn't unusual for her to rush him off the phone on such a night, though there was a definite trend going on recently.

After the _brief_ moment in which she'd condescended to be flattered by his seemingly uncontrollable need for sexual gratification in her telephonic presence, Kagome had switched to angry dismissal. She was tired of hearing about it, tired of his insincere apologies. At the conclusion of the first week after the disastrous call, Taishou-san had seemingly caught on to her short tolerance for conversation with him after his bad behavior. His response was to start his apology as soon as possible.

Kagome snorted to herself as she set about making a Javalanche, one of the coffee bar's signature creations containing a combination of espresso, rum and topped with copious amounts of whipped cream and mocha sprinkles. She had to be careful to mix it right as she had orders for two dry and one wet Javalanche and each had a different espresso to rum ratio.

Kagome had no doubt that her inu _was_ sorry that she was upset with him but that wasn't what he was apologizing for. And that would be the only thing she could believe he really felt bad about. There was no way he was sorry for rubbing himself to nirvana in her ear. He'd enjoyed it too much, attempted to persuade her to let him talk them both to that same state too often, and vocally resented her insistence for their continued separation too vehemently.

He'd been doing rather well about treating her like a real person rather than some pet there only for his convenience. Then she made a leap in their relationship and he forgot everything but what he wanted to see.

True, Kagome hadn't been certain what kind of reaction she was going for by sending that particular nighty. It was the only one she'd ever owned that wasn't made of sturdier - and warmer – material. Perhaps that was why she sent it. She wasn't attached to it and of all her nightclothes, it could be condensed to the smallest volume. Which made it the most ideal for stuffing inside a cake. She'd seen it as a way of flirting, perhaps a little bit like encouraging him or rewarding him for good behavior. The little miko had thought it was slightly less embarrassing than having him ask for her underwear like he had in December.

With a shake of her head, Kagome finished up the Javalanches and moved on to the next order in her never ending back log of orders. She was beginning to think there had been some event or other that she wasn't aware of to draw in such a crowd. Normally, even their busiest days of the week never put her this far behind.

Her phone rang again, surprising her. Generally, when Kagome hung up, Taishou-san accepted that she wasn't going to be talking with him for at least a few hours. Occasionally, he would call twice in the same day, but never twice in the same hour. She'd always thought he had at least the basics down when it came to phone etiquette since he'd never been so obnoxious. She silenced the annoying electronic sound with a huff and got back to work. Something else to be peeved with him for.

No matter how neglected he felt, Taishou-san couldn't claim that she was ignoring him, even if she had kept all their conversations short for the last few weeks. She never lied about her reasons for needing to get off the phone, though she had omitted a few things. She always did have to study or fix dinner or work. Really. Since Valentines day she and her roommate had been working twice as hard to make up for the extra expenses put out to cover the various preparations made for their slightly disappointing plans. The fact that most had not come to a satisfactory conclusion didn't mean the expenses suddenly evaporated into thin air.

Brett-san had really put a lot of effort into his romantic dinner plans. Effort and money a med student could barely afford. He'd been eating little more than ramen ever since despite Kagome's regular offers to share the bounty of her scholarship. Her food was paid for – within reason – by the school, and they seemed to think she should be eating a great deal more than she did. Kagome had tried to convince him that feeding him was actually to her benefit. Really, it was because Kagome lost her appetite at the mere smell of the cheap stuff he called ramen.

Either way, Brett was working as much as he could to help make up for his splurging. And whenever he worked, Kagome did too because the opportunity was there. It was one of the most productive ways to fill up her hours. Her advisors were a bit against her working so much and she was getting quite a bit of flak over the situation. So long as her studies remained unaffected by the so-called neglect, she refused to care. Besides, she could use the money about as much as her roommate.

Taishou-san on the other hand, well he wasn't much of a factor in her decision making when Kagome wasn't so perturbed with him. She was more than tired of being reminded of what upset her in the first place, which happened every damn call as soon as he opened his mouth to apologize. It had already gotten to the point where she simply couldn't let him finish the attempt any more, she hadn't the patience for it. It was nice that he understood she was upset, but a simple, insincere 'I'm sorry' wasn't going to take her ire out of the situation. It was more a sop to his conscience than anything else and she was tired of it.

Kagome was more than ready to just drop the whole thing. It was done with, over with. It had been handled badly on all sides and now simply needed to be left in the past. She obviously shouldn't have sent him that stupid satiny thing in the first place. Couldn't they just move on?

Apparently not without explicitly hashing out the details first, Kagome wanted to growl at the reality as she threw mocha sprinkles at her latest order a bit more violently than necessary. It wasn't that she was angry, or even particularly annoyed. She was just frustrated. With herself.

Kagome had a terrible tendency to over-analyze everything that didn't immediately make sense to her.

Back in the days following her unwilling marking, amidst her efforts to secure her safe exit from Tokyo, Kagome had rehashed her first and only sexual encounter until she was sick of the remembered smell and pain stabbed at her brain from the strain of attempting to unveil more memories of it. She'd tried to figure out if it was a direct effect of Taishou Sesshoumaru's courting toxins that had prevented her ability to remember their activities or whether it was a result of the chemical over saturating her senses that did it. Kagome's memory wasn't precisely perfect, but she couldn't imagine that such an important event hadn't been firmly imprinted upon her brain as the encounter unfolded without some explanation.

Every attempt to figure out the exact effects of the burning, intoxicating mist had been accompanied by speculation as to why the youkai in question had ultimately sought to bind her to him. The eternal question of why had plagued her to distraction, interfering with time meant to be spent bonding with the family she was leaving a world behind her. Why a youkai of his social standing and proclivity for womanizing would suddenly be so enamored of her lacking sexual prowess as to mark her for keeps? It hadn't made sense.

After the courtesy call, Kagome had understood that instinct and selfishness had been the cause. Much as she would have preferred to believe his romantic nonsense about instinct being a reasonable analogy for instant love, she knew better. Instant attraction, she could accept. Lust didn't need a reason beyond the biological. Love, the sort that lasted, required a great deal more than instinct or attraction and not even the inu himself could argue with her point.

Her phone rang with Taishou's third attempt to garner her attention just as the supervisor stepped behind the bar that kept the customers out of her personal space. Kagome pointedly silenced the ringer. Two calls in one hour were unreasonable, three was grounds for a heated scolding, especially since she'd already told him she was busy.

"Kagome, Brett," Matthew called to them, almost yelling to make himself heard at the other end of the bar where her roommate was preparing drinks. "It's come to the attention of the management that you two have been all but maxing out your part time hours for the last month."

"Is that a problem?" Kagome asked carefully as her hands continued to work over a Java Mamba for one of the wait staff.

"If it was just me in charge, I wouldn't care," the junior supervisor shrugged with an apologetic grin, "But if you guys don't cut back on work, the big wigs will be forced to reclassify you as full time with all that entails. Neither of you wants that with how your class schedules are set up right now."

"But it's just temporary," Kagome protested.

"The boss doesn't care," Brett snorted elegantly as he came closer.

"'fraid so," Matthew sighed. "So as of right now, both of you are off for the next three days. And I mean right now. Get out of here unless you're buying drinks."

Kagome glanced up at her broke roommate sympathetically. "What do we do now?"

"You heard the man, girly," Brett shrugged, escorting her out from behind the bar and through the throng of caffeinated boozers. "We go home. In the meantime, maybe you could answer your phone."

Kagome sniffed petulantly, "He's being obnoxious. It can wait until we get home."

"Are you ever going to tell me who these mystery calls are from?" he sounded a bit hurt that she absolutely refused to talk about her special phone. Brett was not above using emotional black mail to get what he wanted.

"I haven't even told my mother," she patted her much taller roommate soothingly on the shoulder while pointedly refusing to feel guilty over her refusal to disclose any details. "Don't take it personally."

"That doesn't make me feel better," Brett sniffed. "You're supposed to tell your roommate the sorts of things you wouldn't dare tell your mama. It's because I'm a guy isn't it?"

"I honestly haven't told anybody yet. Even _he_ doesn't know who I am," she chuckled dryly. "My anonymity is about the only reason I'm still able to do what I'm doing. Telling people about it would just ruin all my efforts to develop hanyou medicine."

"What if I swear never to tell a soul?" he wheedled in a fairly whiny tone.

"His family is a very powerful, wealthy one. If it was found out that you withheld information regarding who I was, it would not go well for you either," Kagome shook her head. "Besides, I'm not happy with him right now."

"I'd picked up on that much. A happy lover does not rush her beau off the phone," Brett declared solidly. Kagome wasn't certain if there was a hint of perceived insult in his tone. The gay male had a tendency to take offense over any allusion to a lack of perception or observation on his side. She hadn't meant to upset him, but the whole conversation was an uncomfortable subject for the secret miko.

Kagome wasn't about to tell him precisely why she was so peeved at her so-called beau and she was growing exceedingly weary of Brett attempting to extract information about the situation from her. "You're as bad as he is! We are not 'lovers' as you put it."

The look her roommate gave her was more than a little disbelieving. "One does not call a mere friend everyday, roommie, at least not one you never see and certainly not one you insist on speaking to in private," Brett dismissed her assertion out right. "And whatever you're mad at him about is obviously not being resolved. Face it, girly, you're just gonna have to break down and have a fight to get over it."

Kagome sighed, but conceded that her roommate was probably right. Fine, the little miko was more than ready to get her game face on. Her decision was made just in time as once again her phone began to ring.

"Make sure you nail him for this little string of rowdiness too," Brett gave the singing device a dirty look. "Think you can make it home from here without getting mugged?" The question was facetious as their building was in sight at the corner of the next well-lit street. "I'm going to see if my Louis-baby is up for a little lovin' given this sudden excess of free time."

"You're the one who insists on staying with me as if I can't walk home on my own. You have fun, tell Louis-san I said hi," Kagome waved him off before taking out her keys and answering her phone. "Taishou-san, if you're not on death's door step, bleeding profusely or suffering from some unexplained disease that a multitude of practicing physicians can't identify you are in serious trouble."

"Mate," Taishou-san attempted to stall her scolding.

"Two calls within fifteen minutes of each other is just plain silly when you knew I was busy. Three calls in the span of thirty minutes is ridiculous and four should have you feeling incredibly guilty for being so unnecessarily demanding," She informed him as she climbed the stairs up to her shared apartment. "Not even my incurably social brother has such bad manners."

"Mate, please," he seemed to whimper.

"Congratulations," Kagome scowled at the darkened hall way, making mental note that she needed to file a work order with the land lord to get it fixed, "You now have my undivided attention although, you may soon wish you'd left off for a bit longer. Now we get to have that argument you've been asking for."

"This Sesshoumaru has in no way been striving to cause an argument with you, mate. I realize that the events of Valentines day were in bad taste and entirely my fault and have been sincerely trying to apologize -"

Kagome snorted. "You aren't sorry you did it, and don't insult me by trying to play it like you were. You may regret that I got upset by it, but if the chance were to arise a second time, you'd do it again."

"This Sesshoumaru would prefer for you to join him and enjoy it. It is not as satisfying without you," he answered quietly, confusing her utterly. What on earth could he mean by that? "And I would in future strive to only do such things with your knowing consent. What I did was the same as when we mated, almost. You were right to be upset."

Kagome was mildly surprised, but the bulk of her bad feelings over the whole issue dissipated with his admission that he wished to have her consent. It was the first time he had demonstrated remorse over taking her choice from her. Kagome wasn't some raging feminist, but her life should be directed by her choices, not somebody else's. By the same token, she tried really hard not to take the choices of others from them. "I – Thank you."

"Mate?" he was the one to sound confused.

"That is a very big pet peeve of mine, people making choices for me," she told him sheepishly.

"Hn, this Sesshoumaru has become aware," he acknowledged with a dry chuckle and Kagome couldn't help but smile. She'd certainly made her point with it after all.

"Finally!" she couldn't help teasing him though. If he'd been paying attention they wouldn't be talking about it now. "You are slow."

"Indeed," the nuances in his voice had her convinced he was smirking with good-natured humor. Abruptly his tone took on a serious quality, "Mate, this Sesshoumaru intended to ask something of you."

"And you thought harassing me over the phone was the best way to get me in the mood to do you favors?" Kagome couldn't resist smirking herself, though she was curious and no longer as upset as she was. "Lets hear it, Taishou-san. What was the cause behind your determination to be heard today?"

Obviously choosing to move past her scolding, he began his opening arguments as if negotiating some official business proposal. "The past few weeks, this Sesshoumaru has been working on the reciprocal gift for white day as your gracious gift deserves. Today, I realized that despite the fact my gift will not be ready by the fourteenth, I would not have a way to get it to you regardless. Your strident insistence towards continued anonymity makes it rather difficult for an instinctively affectionate youkai to fulfill those instincts as my nature demands."

"I see your problem, but I don't know how you think we can fix it," Kagome conceded. She had read about inu pack relationships. Healthy inu were prone to excessive gifting during courtships and both sexes could be openly demonstrative to varying degrees. They'd sort of skipped the courtship phase but that didn't mean he wasn't driven by the same urges. Mated couples carried on the same courting behaviors for decades after finalizing the relationship. She just hadn't expected it.

"It is not an immediate problem, but this Sesshoumaru felt it was best to address the issue now so that when your white day gift is completed you can receive it."

"Why don't you just let me buy something like we did in December?" Kagome inquired. He'd given her leave to use a pre-paid credit card number on-line to purchase her camera and subsequent memory sticks.

"Because this Sesshoumaru is making your gift. And money cannot convey the same sentiments as a gift created for you by your mate." Kagome wanted to roll her eyes, though she was curious about what he would make for her. "Besides, this Sesshoumaru is also planning a special, unique gift for the anniversary of our mating."

Kagome glowered at her roommate's Marilyn Monroe print in lieu of the baka inu that would celebrate marking her against her will. "There's nothing to celebrate about that."

"Au contraire mate, for it is the date this Sesshoumaru was gifted with awareness of you. Those events, though not what we would have wished to happen, mark an abrupt and important change in our lives. I believe those changes, at least on my side, have been for the better despite my continued frustration with your distance. As such, I will celebrate it and hope that you will someday come to see it the same as I," his growling voice rolled across the world for her to hear. "In any case, the issue is how to make it so you can receive this Sesshoumaru's gifts without giving away your location. I have considered the problem seriously and believe that a solution _is_ possible."

"Well, lets hear it then," Kagome skeptically sought to find the point of this discussion quickly. Taishou-san didn't usually get so far off track, wandering down tangents was more her style. She might have teased him about it if she wasn't so annoyed.

"A post office box," he sounded pleased with himself.

Kagome, on the other hand, was ready to blow up. "A P.O. Box? Are you crazy? How is that not compromising the secrecy of my current location?"

"It is simple, mate," he tried to calm her down. "It doesn't have to be near where you live and if you could stay hidden in Tokyo, even sharing the same University campus as this Sesshoumaru then surely you can do the same while maintaining a mail box half a world away. You could go to the next town over, supply them with this Sesshoumaru's address as a billing address and use that card, or I could provide you with a new one."

Kagome thought about it beyond the gut reaction to refuse. A post office box was a risk regardless of where she set it up. Her university was set in a sizable town on its own, so giving him an address wouldn't give him her location if she set it up near the school. Except for the times when she went to check her mail. Kagome wasn't stupid. Even setting a box up in an adjacent town provided the same risk.

"Please mate," Taishou-san whined. "This Sesshoumaru will promise you the same assurances as were provided in regards to the phone. Allow me this, it is a small thing. Give me an outlet, a way to touch you across distances, please."

"Fine, I'll look into it. Same rules apply," Kagome relented with a sigh. "You attempt to find me, I pick up and leave everything behind."

"Thank you, mate," he nearly purred in her ear. For some reason she felt unaccountably pleased to have given in over this.

Hours later, as Kagome got ready for a long soak in the tub, she allowed herself to admit her real reason for giving in was curiosity over what her purported white day gift was going to be. She had received a number of gifts over the years in response to her own gifts of chocolate, but most were generic store bought standbys. No thought or effort ever seemed to be warranted when gifting her anything. Even her little brother got her the same gift for White day every year, something edible, sweet, and cheap. She loved Souta, but the gifts were unequal.

When he got really into soccer a few years back, Kagome made soccer balls out of white and dark chocolate. The following year, she created a full scene with goal posts and goalie. The year after that, he'd discovered girls and Kagome had made a scene where Souta and his flame were portrayed passing a soccer ball back and forth (the girl was on the girl's team at school at the time). In return, Kagome had three boxes of strawberry pocky and a bashful hug.

Her classmates, the ones who had received chocolates, had all received equally thoughtful confections for which Kagome received desk calenders, stationary, one set of health shoes (that kid was always a little weird) and a slew of journals. All of which she'd struggled not to feel disappointed about. It wasn't that Kagome expected or really wanted to receive payback for her chocolates, but if they were going to take the time to do it, couldn't they have made it worth their effort and hers?

Which is why she was so curious as to what Taishou-san's gift would be. He struck her as someone who would put a lot of thought into what gifts he gave. She hoped he was. It would be interesting to see what he had picked up on from talking with her over the past several months – almost a year.


	10. Anniversary

Apples and Spice! I'm so happy to have my car back! I went in to have it inspected and the oil changed on Monday only to find the heater core is leaking. They kept my car! I got a loaner in its place, but I wanted my car. The loaner was very new (only 368 miles on it!) and really expensive compared to my little Vibe. Driving it home that night, I really REALLY missed my car. It's not that the loaner was a bad car, it didn't smell, was very clean, but it wasn't mine and it was bigger, rode higher than mine does. ugh! I'm just glad it's all over.

Just like you're all glad the wait for this chapter is over too! I received a comment that I don't update weekly, which is absolutely false. I have yet to miss a week for posting since I started posting this story. Now, if you want me to make an honest reviewer of you, I can start missing weeks entirely. _Wild_ did that because I hadn't written in it yet, but we've got a sizeable buffer to this thing and you're a ways from that problem popping up. Anyways, I'm off to work today (yes I work on a Sunday. I work every other Sat./Sun which I did tell you). It's going to be another long day so responses will likely have to wait for evening if not tomorrow. I stare at a computer screen all day, sometimes it's better for me not to do it when I get home again. Keep that in mind!

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Anniversary**

Sesshoumaru stood staring out the panoramic window in his bedroom. Sometimes when he stood in this specific spot the inu got flashes of his mate against that same window. He could almost see her, feel her, smell her at the edges of his perception. It was strangely cathartic in almost a masochistic, mostly pathetic sort of way. At least, that's how Sesshoumaru chose to perceive it. He really had so very little of his mate to hold onto.

Most days, Sesshoumaru kept from this particular occupation as he had a tendency to forget all other obligations once he settled into it. He could stand there for hours and only the drastic changing of night and day could rouse him from his contemplation of remembered oil impressions on the streak free glass.

Today was special. Today, Sesshoumaru had skipped all his classes without notifying his demanding father secure in the knowledge that he'd miss nothing important. It was the Friday before finals week. There were nothing but reviews to be missed. And keeping his hooky intentions from his alpha simply insured that Sesshoumaru would have the entire day to remember that this day last year he had mated.

Granted, not all of the remembrance was pleasant, but for all the things he had learned of his mate since then, he couldn't find it in himself to regret how things had panned out.

The female, with her chosen goals and determination, would shortly be raised to worldwide renown and respect. Then she would be in high demand and widely courted by a number of males. That Sesshoumaru had caught her before all of that was actually quite a lucky thing. She may insist that instinct did not look for compatibility beyond genetics, but his mate was quite a better catch than he'd ever imagined could be possible.

True there were a number of well respected females in the upper echelons of class and society, but few made it there through their own efforts. She would.

But it would take time. And if he were to track her down and stand beside her now, no one would believe she did it on her own. She hadn't left him to insure she received proper recognition for her work and dedication, for in that one aspect she had been completely correct. Being the mate of the Taishou heir would have circumvented any chance of her achieving any goal outside simply being the female on his arm at formal social functions. Taishou Hiroyuki would have seen to that and Sesshoumaru as he had been then wouldn't have thought there was anything wrong with that. The male he had been a year ago had never known a woman could be more than what he had seen and what he had seen was his mother and Izayoi. Izayoi had been a hime before his father had marked her. She had never desired or been encouraged to look beyond her duties as a royal. Her job was to be seen in all the right places and to maintain the family home.

Sesshoumaru's mother...well her ambitions all related to her position with his father. It never occurred to him that she wanted it that way or if she had wanted anything else in her life. The inu bitch had just always been there. As for the young inu's own personal experiences with females, his mate was the only one he'd apparently ever bothered to learn about.

On the one hand, it made learning about her more interesting. Everything his mate was went counter to everything he'd ever known of females. Exploring the nuances of her personality, as slow going as it was, filled his life with new revelations in every exchange of words. Sometimes, Sesshoumaru was willing to acknowledge their relationship probably wouldn't have had a chance of becoming so in depth if the situation had unraveled in any other fashion.

By the same token, it left him wondering just how he was ever going to grow any closer to his contrary and determined mate. She was keeping him at a distance he couldn't understand and it had nothing to do with being a world away.

Oh she would occasionally let him know what hijinks she got up to, but in a strange way, it wasn't enough for Sesshoumaru. He wanted to know why she did things, how she reasoned out the actions she took. He wanted to know what experiences she'd had to go through that shaped her into the woman he now claimed as mate. She never discussed her feelings with him and her opinions were just as mysterious as her name still remained.

But today wasn't about what he didn't know.

A gentle ringing called his attention from his personal haze. It was the special phone he kept for the only number that called was his mate.

"Hello Taishou-san," her sweet voice chirped in his ear when he answered.

"Happy Anniversary mate," Sesshoumaru replied warmly.

After a year of talking on the phone he had grown comfortable with his ability to interpret her pauses and the one that followed his salutation clearly indicated she was struggling to refrain from bringing up their previously discussed argument on the subject. Sesshoumaru could allow, though he was unhappy to do it, that she might not view their mating anniversary in the same positive light that he did but he was determined that eventually she would. Even if she didn't though, it was still an important date to be remembered. "I got your package," she replied after a quiet sigh echoed down through the connection. "Picked it up this morning before most of my classes." She chuckled briefly, "though I almost left it there when I found out how bulky it was. It was something of an adventure carrying it around with me all day."

Sesshoumaru strained to arrest the sudden desire to loose a disgruntled growl. Just because he had felt comfortable skipping his classes, reviews for final exams in subjects he had no real care for and his mate did not was no reason to sulk. She was studying subjects that meant a great deal to her, each a stepping stone towards that goal passion drove her to. And to be honest, he cared more for the classes she took than any of his own subjects. "It must have been quite a sight," he replied instead. The package was a little on the large side. Certainly larger than any package he'd received from her so far. "Have you opened it yet?"

"Not yet, I just got home," she replied absently. "It's easier to lug around a sealed package than one that's been opened and has stuff falling out of it."

This time he allowed the sounds of relief their escape into the ether of cell phone communication. Part of his gift, the part meant for their anniversary, could have drawn a negative reaction from his mystery mate if Sesshoumaru weren't present-at least on the phone-during the revealing.

Naturally his perceptive little mate picked up on the sound, "Should I be worried about the contents of this package?" she asked blandly.

"It is not that mate," Sesshoumaru assured her gently. "This Sesshoumaru promises there is nothing inappropriate contained therein. Open your package."

"All right then," she accepted his word, a show of trust that warmed the inu disproportionately. The rustling sounds of the female moving about her far distant and never seen apartment, presumably looking for something to open the brown mailing box with. A moment later the sharp slide of some blade through the packing tape rasped into his ear. The sound of paper shuffling preceded a very bolstering gasp of pleased awe. "Oh, Taishou-san, it's beautiful!" He knew she'd appreciate it. Choosing her seemingly favored tree to recreate in ink had been an easy choice and he'd had plenty of angles and images to choose from as she sent one to him of the same tree with every memory stick. Sesshoumaru planned to create a different set for each season to gift her on white days to come.

Sesshoumaru was rather pleased with how his white day gift had turned out. "You have the originals of this Sesshoumaru's drawings and the copies of developed photos you took. I have the original developed photos and copies of the drawings, mate." The meaning for the division being what it was he had no intention of explicitly detailing. Someday all of the originals would be reunited when they as mates reunited.

"I had no idea you would be so good at it when I suggested you try it," she breathed. "They look just like my pictures."

"Hn, this Sesshoumaru's sensei was quite impressed also." He admitted mildly with pride. "And her partner claims you have a good eye for one so new to photography."

"Flattery, Taishou-san, will get you nowhere," she declared in amusement and the inu couldn't help but smirk at his reflection in the window before him. "This is the best white day gift I've ever received."

And that practically had him rumbling in pleased satisfaction. Sesshoumaru had no doubt his mate had received numerous white day gifts as she was the type to gift chocolate to many come valentines. He was surprised though, that his would be best as he doubted her sentiments were strong enough to overwhelm everything and everyone else she'd ever known. "Truly there must have been other gifts worth more than this Sesshoumaru's meager efforts."

"Normally, I might be inclined to defend my friends, but in this they have all proven decidedly inept. I don't give out gifts for Valentines in order to receive something on White day, but if they feel like doing it I'd rather they'd take into account just who they are trying to gift when deciding what to give. Stationary is not exactly a universal gift, for I have never had a use for it." she explained mildly. "I did expect more than stationary from you when you insisted upon gifting me, but I didn't expect this. This is a pleasant surprise."

"Hn, this Sesshoumaru had never had cause to give anything on white day before, but stationary was never even thought of," he chuckled. He couldn't see his mate as having much use for fancy paper, cards, or envelops. Not now nor at any point in her younger years. She wasn't a socialite and someday, when she ran a practice of her own, she'd probably have her communications printed out professionally just to save her time for more important pursuits. At least his gift could be hung up on a wall in her future office and look professionally artistic enough not to seem out of place. Although, he was just thinking of that now, his true motivation was a desire to tie them together in some definable way that could be seen and touched and understood.

Despite his seeming popularity, he'd never had cause to seriously reciprocate any of the Valentines gifts he'd received in the past. Gifts likely to make him ill simply didn't garner a response from him, or rather, not one his many admirers might have liked. And he certainly hadn't cared how they'd felt at his lack of response.

Sesshoumaru recalled one year when his brother had chosen to prank him by sending him a dozen roses for valentines day. The cloying scent had nauseated him for as long as it took to clean the scent from his room as he had still been living with the pack at the time. Inuyasha's return gift the following month had been a rather odiferous bouquet of lilies that had knocked the brat out for hours and prevented anyone from coming near to dispose of it.

That was actually the incident that had led to Sesshoumaru being exiled to his own apartment, now that he thought of it. His sire had dressed him down quite ruthlessly in front of the whole pack and told the press it was part of his grooming to become a successful heir. The whole episode had irritated him greatly as Inuyasha had pulled worse pranks and certainly more often, without even a mild scolding but Sesshoumaru dare retaliate once in kind...

"Thank you," she repeated warmly, the inflection toasting his insides with a different sort of pleasure than he was used to associating with females and drawing him away from his errant train of thought. With another ambiguous rustle of packing paper, Sesshoumaru assumed she set the framed art aside to delve deeper into the box.

This was the moment he'd been so anxious for. Sesshoumaru was a bit nervous about this second gift, the one meant for their anniversary. As she'd repeated more than once, he didn't know her well enough to take genuine comfort from her or for their mating to be a successful one. With this in mind, Sesshoumaru had been trying to think of ways to better build the sort of relationship he craved through experiences and gifts that would both let her know he was listening and learning about her but also convey things about himself.

In essence, he'd decided that, considering how their connection was created, he would court her in the traditional way inu youkai wooed females they had never physically met. That had been the idea behind his gift for their anniversary, anyway.

"I see why you asked if I had opened this now," she murmured. "Your note seems rather strident that I call you before opening this next gift."

"Hnn, this gift is for our anniversary, mate." Sesshoumaru acknowledged a growing nervousness squeezing at his insides. "The chest is made of cedar and the depictions carved across the top were etched with the use of this one's own toxins. Before you open it, this Sesshoumaru feels he should explain the background behind it."

Carefully clearing his throat, Sesshoumaru set about introducing his gift. "In Feudal days, when youkai were constantly forced to defend their claimed territories from being encroached upon by warring human factions. There was little time for young eligible males and females to meet each other and perform the necessary steps of proper courtship. The solution for most species was to develop a long distance method of doing so. Many were modeled after human stand in weddings and arranged marriages with females, sight unseen. Naturally with youkai, things were required to be a bit more complex and most scent dependent species simply required something to replace previous rites that slowly built up the necessary markings and familiarities."

"Formerly, all that was required was an increasing amount of time spent between youkai pairs in close proximity, a certain level of touching and closeness to build up bonds and ties. But such was not possible at that time. So the use of scent boxes became quite popular."

Scent boxes were actually older than the tradition of using them in courting, but the simple cedar box of perfumes had been expanded upon and enriched for its newer purpose. Sesshoumaru had given much thought to the presentation of his scent box to his mate. He could have gone an extremely ornate route as nowadays boxes could be found made of everything from simple pine to cherry wood and further into even ivory. The various bottles could be made in plastic, glass or crystal. The traditional scent boxes were seldom used in everyday courting anymore so most were given as a display of wealth or kept in museums and the like.

Put simply, despite the fact that Sesshoumaru had decided to court his mate, he'd really had no practical idea of how to do so. All his experiences with the fairer sex had been about achieving quick and easy access to their private parts. So he'd fallen back on tradition as taught to him by his occasionally senile grandsire. "All of the scented unguents and tinctures contained there in were created from this Sesshoumaru. Their purpose in courting is to help you to feel comfortable and safe surrounded in and stained by my scent. There is a tincture designed to help you develop a tolerance for this Sesshoumaru's more caustic poisons." There was also one that had side effects that would leave the female aroused and desperate for fulfillment too, though that was not the original intent of its inclusion.

He heard the scrape of wood on wood and deduced that she had popped the lid off the box to explore the contents. "You were very detailed in your instructions on application and doses," she marveled neutrally. "Except for..."

There was one solution he'd carefully left blank except for instructions to call him before use. "This Sesshoumaru should warn you mate, because you are so adamant about being allowed your free choice, the contents of a scent box are extremely addictive. In former days, the contents were applied before witnesses as soon as mating arrangements were solidified to ensure the female could not be offered to some other male before consummation could happen. The use of such laid scent claim that any male could sense but it also made the female more unresponsive to the courting of any not her betrothed with the exception of one." He took a deep breath before taking the plunge towards this final bit of explanation. "The last one was specifically applied to the inside of the female only after her sexual maturity by the supplied applicator and often caused such an increase in sexual readiness she wouldn't care who she took to quench her needs." Which is why this particular unguent was always applied by a body slave of the same sex.

"Is that why you left off directions on the sheet?"

"This Sesshoumaru was uncertain of how you would receive the gift if it was merely written out," the inu replied uneasily turning to rest his shoulders against the sun warmed glass. "Tradition had this solution applied with an available female attendant to soothe away the side effects."

"In other words, to sex up the recipient and prevent the female from dishonoring her mate by taking another male," his mate declared baldly.

Sesshoumaru controlled his sudden urge to wince. "I wanted to warn you of the side effects should you chose to use the contents of this gift. My intent was more to indicate a desire for courting long distance than actual use, but if you do use this last piece I would ask that you only do so with me as present as can be through a phone."

"I suppose I can understand that," she agreed to his relief.

They remained silent on the phone for a few minutes before she surprised him with a question. "If exposure to these various products made from a courting male is addictive, wouldn't the female sexual attendant also become addicted?"

Sesshoumaru cringed, this was a rather questionable facet of history that he had never approved of. "Yes."

"So what happened to her after the mating if she was already addicted to her mistress's male?"

"The situation was dealt with in a variety of ways at different points of history. Initially, the body slave was simply allowed to die from her addiction as usually the position was filled by a lesser youkai or a human of little to no other value. Later, the second female was offered to the male after the witnessed mating rites were performed and the claimed female had been properly marked. Youkai rutting can be a bit violent and it was decided that the first rut in the house of the female's family would not be so. No parent desires to see, hear or sense violence being delivered upon their daughter at any time. As a reward for withholding their full desires, the male would often return to his assigned rooms to find the addicted attendant trussed up and left to the tender mercies of the male to whom she was addicted. Custom allowed for the male's use of that female until she died either from his use or age."

Sesshoumaru sometimes really hated history and the depravity that threaded through it for no reason. "Towards the end of that particular period, when the use of comely human females had become the custom, a number of males would mark the human slave and keep both females, neither of whom could argue about it because the addiction was so strong."

"That's disgusting," she opined.

"This Sesshoumaru concurs," he agreed. "It was considered a great dishonor for the female to be left unmated in place of her body slave, a mark of her inability to please her betrothed male. Though, it is more likely the male was disrespectful, greedy and far too enamored of using his females."

There was that careful pause again as of his mate struggling with herself about bringing up a much belabored argument already had and settled. "This Sesshoumaru may not have gone about selecting his mate in the most respectful and courteous of ways, but I would never disrespect you by rutting with another female whether I have your permission or not." He didn't really need her to say it to know what she'd been thinking.

"I didn't say anything," she hummed innocently.

"You were thinking of it," he teased her. "And this Sesshoumaru's sire did not mate his female's body slave either. He truly was mated to Izayoi, who was a hime, years before this Sesshoumaru's dam ever entered the picture."

"I don't know why you're so defensive over you family," she commented. "You are clearly not your father so comparison beyond your shared species is hardly possible."

Sesshoumaru relaxed at her statement. He lived his days under the shadow of his sire, being compared to the elder's business acumen, exploits, and personality. He never came up short in his opinion because there simply was no way to properly compare the two. Taishou Hiroyuki stood in a class he'd made all his own and Sesshoumaru was subconsciously working towards doing the same, one that would not include his father. He wasn't as well received by some of his father's business associates, but basic apathy over the matter kept him from caring.

"What are the side effects of the rest of it, Taishou-san?" her calm voice sailed into his ear. "You only talked about this one."

"The others aren't as severe and likely to get this Sesshoumaru in trouble again," she chuckled mildly on the other end and he couldn't help the minute smile that ghosted over his lips. "The purpose of the others is to develop a certain level of reliance on the presence of that scent. The ultimate result is that the female learns to associate feelings of safety, security, and a modicum of affection with the scent and the one who carries it. A sudden removal of that scent will produce anxiety and varying levels of fear. It can be gotten over with time and nothing in the box will forcefully produce feelings of love, but the species' experiences through time have taught that finding comfort in a mate's presence can mean more than the presence or absence of love."

"And what do you think?" his mate asked pointedly.

"I never expected more than to take comfort in my mate and to occasionally pursue the passion experienced between two so joined adults," he replied blandly. Sesshoumaru may have wanted more, but he'd never really thought it would happen for him even before his father had taken the right to chose from him.

"You're not completely unlovable, Taishou-san. Nobody is," she insisted, though how she jumped from what he said to that, he didn't know. Females had strange logic, and his female's mind worked through even stranger trails. At least he could claim she was exceptional.

"The point, dear mate, was that this Sesshoumaru did not expect to find love in a mating of my father's choosing. His aim would be to achieve the maximum political benefit for the pack, his business, and his allies. No where in the equation would my preferences have been consulted." Sesshoumaru was careful to leave out the bitterness he still felt over the subject. He'd prevented that outcome for the one he was currently living and he didn't want her to think he was bitter to have wound up with her. She was probably a better outcome than he could have expected, certainly a higher quality of woman than his net should have caught and more than he had ever deserved.

"Mating lasts for a long time, Taishou-san," she murmured ponderously on the other end of the phone. "Who's to say if affection wouldn't have grown into the relationship over the period of time you would have been stuck together?"

"Perhaps affection might have, but affection is not love, mate. And there is a very good chance that while this Sesshoumaru would have intended to start out monogamous, in such a situation; with the inu proclivity towards greater sexual appetite, who is to say it would have lasted. There is also the added likelihood that this Sesshoumaru's arranged mate would not have been inclined to faithfulness from the start. After all, it is difficult to respect a male whose father had to arrange a mating," the inu pointed out whether the arranging was done without the male's consent was immaterial.

True, inu ran to the possessive side of relationships, unwilling to share, but that didn't stop infidelity on the female's part from happening. Marking certainly made it so that no youkai male of lesser strength would touch the female, but concealing make up and inferior senses could induce a human male to go where others feared to tread. And there were historical examples where a female arranged into mating had gone into it while in collusion with a disassociated male intending to both cheat and ultimately betray their mate. Sesshoumaru was such a male as to take infidelity of his female as permission to go that route himself, and would have done so immediately, forever to forsake his mate's bed afterward, making it a permanent breech.

"You're very pessimistic, you realize that, right?" she pointed out.

"No mate, I am realistic. You realize that any youkai female that would allow herself to enter into an arranged mating in this day and age has ulterior motives. And a human who did so is either overly biddable, making her a pet that this Sesshoumaru must look after like a child, or incredibly greedy and shallow. Can you see a solid, fulfilling relationship developing from such material? This Sesshoumaru does not believe in miracles," he scoffed.

"So instead, you went looking for women you could seduce into sex – indicating either that same shallowness and greed since they didn't require an actual relationship prior to laying with you, or a weak will, making them easily biddable," she chuckled. "In essence, you wound up with the same type of materials to build a mating on."

"Perhaps," Sesshoumaru conceded. "Except it would have been this Sesshoumaru's choice and not his sires, and none going into it expected to be granted such a long term commitment once my reputation was established. Though you are the only one who didn't want it once formed."

"It's a moot point, Taishou-san, given that you already marked me," she declared, a hint of smugness filling the words.

"And I could not have caught me a better mate if I had tried," he returned just as smug. His proud, near feral grin reflected back to him in the glass. What other female would be inclined to argue with him, tease him and provoke him into trying new things?


	11. Of Zombies and Manners

Several Readers have expressed confusion over the time gaps. I'm not very explicit because I trust in your ability to pick up clues, but I suppose I can give a truncated calendar.

Chapter 1-4 take place from mid to late April.

Chapter 5 occurs in May.

Chapter 6 takes place in late November. Kagome is wrapping gifts, but she has to mail them out early if she wants them to arrive in time for the holidays. (You learn this sort of thing when you family is 1500 miles away and you have family stationed overseas).

Chapter 7 is Christmas Day in Japan. I hope every one caught that given Sesshoumaru ruminated over that fact several times in the chapter.

Chapter 8 is Valentines Day. Well, a little earlier for Kagome. At the very least it is February.

Chapter 9 is March approaching White day. They've been _not _arguing for about a month.

Chapter 10 is April again. In Japan, School Years start in the spring given that they generally go to school year round, spring's a good a time as any. It also means the previous year ends around the same time. I'm not certain if the university carries the same scheduling, but no one else seems to complain about it so I'm leaving it.

This Chapter is set in September. Zombie movies generally hit before October to best capitalize on the Halloween-esque topic. Not that Kagome or Sesshoumaru would really enjoy a zombie movie at all.

I do not own: 1) Inuyasha, the characters or world therefrom. Those belong to Rumiko Takahashi. 2) the original idea that spawn this specific plot. That was borrowed from Shellbabe's _Lost Mate_ found on FFN.

**Of Zombies and Manners**

Kagome waited patiently for the customer ahead of her to conclude his transaction with the teller. She'd been standing in line with three impatient youkai teenagers for the last half hour waiting for her turn to purchase tickets to see a movie that neither interested her nor had a chance of entertaining her.

Kagome liked going to an occasional movie. It was usually a half way decent method of killing a couple hours in any given evening. Some were quite engaging while others...were obviously geared toward non-thinking teenagers who loved an overabundance of slapstick comedy as opposed to wit, over the top special effects to actual plot, and a decided predilection towards unnecessary gore. She wasn't particularly squeamish about blood; being a future doctor sort of left her without that luxury. Same could be said of finding any one part of the body taboo to be seen. She already knew the Latin names for all of it, watching specific pieces get left behind or flung left and right could never be even mildly enthralling.

And she hated having to share her movie with an overly excited crowd of people – in the rare event that she found one worth spending money to see. Kagome didn't care if the whole world saw the movie before she did. She much preferred an almost empty theater to having to fight to find a seat and then glaring at the various bad-mannered jerks who insisted on talking during the movie she paid to see. If that required she wait a few weeks for the fervor over the show to die down as everybody else in the world got to see it, that was fine with her.

However, she'd made a promise.

At the advent of the summer recess, it came to Kagome's attention that a number of her classmates were planning to accumulate their required community service hours through various programs designed to collect many in a short intensive span of several days. One of her fellows had signed on to build houses with Habitat for Humanity over the course of a few weeks. Another intended to spend the same amount of time in New Orleans helping to clean up the still recovering city from the hurricane a few years back. And three fellow doctors-in-the-making were participating in a Doctor's Without Borders exchange to Peru.

When Kagome had signed on with her new University, she'd understood that Community Service was part of the curriculum requirements. She'd had no problem with that beyond getting settled into her studies and her new country. This was the time to look into what she could do around her rather packed schedule...or so she'd thought.

The moment she'd brought it to the attention of her advisers and sought information about programs she could participate in, she'd encountered a lot of static. They were all adamant she couldn't leave the country, which let out all of the more efficient methods of acquiring the hours she needed. Then came the arguments for and against her need for service hours at all. How much community service should she be required to do, if any? One adviser insisted that Kagome simply couldn't have the time necessary to study two paths of medical study and spend time volunteering at all. Another thought that since her intention was to ultimately benefit two facets of society (youkai and human) that Kagome should do twice the amount usually required. The third thought Kagome should limit her efforts to acting as a tutor to her less apt classmates, hoping that doing so would help her keep up with her studies while solidly reviewing everything she'd studied before that point regularly. The fourth suggested the Big Brothers, Big Sisters organization and Kagome had liked the idea.

The four of them argued back and forth for weeks until Kagome preempted their decision by contacting the local chapter to find her a sib.

That had been Sesshoumaru's suggested move. She'd complained about the stagnant situation to him a few times. When he'd managed to glean just how much Kagome really liked (and secretly needed) the connection to someone younger, he'd seemingly felt confident enough to give her encouragement toward doing what she wanted to do.

Put simply, Kagome missed her younger brother. She missed putting up with his silly friends from time to time. This particular program would enable her to experience some of what she missed being separated from Souta.

Sure she got along well with her roommate and his boyfriend, but it wasn't a relationship where she felt she contributed much that was needed. When Brett-san invited her home for a holiday, she was a guest, not a member of the family. Kagome needed someone to look after, oh not to babysit and certainly not full time. But somebody she could teach something to that had nothing to do with medicine and everything to do with life.

So, Kagome found herself assigned three ookami teenagers to mentor. Apparently the local Big Brother, Big Sister section had learned the Ookami did better mentoring in small groups than one on one. Though Kagome was certain Kouga would have been fine by himself, even if she wouldn't wish it on anyone who wasn't well versed on Ookami behaviors and a raging feminist. He was a brat for all that he was the eldest of the three. The elders of his tribe had informally asked her to do what she could to curb his arrogance and penchant for social faux pas in mixed company.

Kagome had primly informed them she wasn't a miracle worker. There was no help to be had from her when the punk in question couldn't hear past the end of his own words declaring her "his woman" at first acquaintance. In that moment she had wished she were more willing to deliver violence on a body younger than her own. She didn't need another male to claim her without her say so. Being Canadian, the brat was also more tactile in his enthusiastic verbal claims that she found comfortable. Hand shaking she could tolerate. She even occasionally enjoyed hugging with friends who didn't attempt to take ownership of her life. Any contact with him made her want to invest in force field technologies just to keep him away. Kagome had never met a person younger than her who she was so driven to avoid.

If it weren't for the other two, Ginta and Hakkaku, she'd have told the agency to find her new sibs. But she just couldn't do that to them.

The local ookami tribe had suffered significant losses of their adult males throughout the last century. They had originally been based in the United States until after the second world war and the continued use of the draft for further conflicts in Korea and then Vietnam. Somehow, the Ookami always got picked making the elders question whether the draw weren't slightly rigged against them. Ultimately, the pack had immigrated to Canada to save what few breeding males were left to them.

The result of all these wars and losses, left the pack with too few adults to nurture and raise too many young, which sort of left anyone beyond the age where they couldn't clothe and bathe and basically tend themselves in a vast wasteland of mild neglect. Oh they were loved and valued, but when there's only so much time in a day and only so much adult attention to go around, teenagers ran second fiddle to toddlers all the way around.

It was a sad state of things as far as Kagome could judge it. And incredibly unfair. So Kagome would never drop all three just because Kouga was a precocious jerk. She could put up with at least that much for Ginta and Hakkaku. Along those lines, Kagome had promised to take them to a movie if they managed to behave properly over the summer. It wasn't a bribe so much as a show of appreciation as far as she was concerned, given that the three in general were all well-behaved when it came to pack interactions. It was more like earning an allowance for doing the chores required to be done anyway.

She'd expected the trio to pick something at least halfway decent. Summer was a time of multiple movie releases, so Kagome had believed it reasonable to hope they'd chose something that had been out a few weeks. Her hopes had not been met.

The movie they'd chosen was a new release, out just the night before and expected to do marvelously well in the box office its first weekend out of the gate. The theater was already buzzing with a fairly large crowd apparently excited to see it. Kouga had been so excited and worried the show would sell out that he'd insisted they arrive an hour and twenty minutes beforehand. Still they'd been forced to wait in line outside the ticket booth for half an hour.

Just as the person in front of her finished his transaction her pocket started to sing merrily that Taishou-san was calling.

Kagome knew it was rude to talk on the phone when dealing with sales staff in any kind of environment, but she could never not answer that phone. It would be cruel, besides, it would only take her a few moments to make her purchase and then she'd be free to converse with him while her sibs played in the arcade. So she accepted the call. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to hand you off for a moment," she told him before the inu could get a word in and promptly gave her phone over to the trio suddenly paying exceptionally close attention to her. With a growling "be polite" she turned back to the cashier to conduct their transaction.

She wasn't terribly worried that the ookami would offend her mate, Taishou-san was sufficiently aware of what the conversation was likely to hold once he ascertained who he was talking to. And it'd be fairly impossible for him not to clue into Kouga's identity given the demand to know who was calling "his woman". It was sort of funny how Ginta immediately tried to convince Kouga to tone down his behavior. Kagome was occupied with buying their tickets, not deaf after all.

The two younger wolves were always trying to tone their leader down. They looked up to him as best they could, but when it came to Kagome they worried she would disappear on them. They called her nei-san out of respect for her culture and affection for her title and the organization that had sent her to them. They were also well aware of what Kagome's goals were in life and that she really didn't like Kouga or his behavior. In this one facet, Kagome thought the younger two would do better with girls than their senior. They actually listened.

In fact, Ginta had summarily decided he wanted to become a hanyou doctor too, so he could learn from her and help achieve her dream. She imagined that any male who would support a mere surrogate sister that much couldn't help but form a solid healthy relationship with any female he so chose. Being a doctor certainly wouldn't hurt him in the romance department either, if he actually stuck with it long enough to become one. He was only fourteen after all.

Hakkaku's dreams were a little more immediate and short term. He wanted to visit Japan and learn the language so he could introduce himself to her family. He loved to hear about her mother especially after Kagome had allowed him to talk to her once. Her mother's English wasn't perfect, but it was enough to convince the ookami that she was the very best woman on the planet. In a way, Kagome found it funny that he saw her that way. It would almost freak her out if she wasn't completely certain that he saw her mother as simply a mother and given that all three youkai hadn't had the devoted motherly care that she'd had, the doctor-to-be couldn't blame him. Most of her friends in middle and high school had declared their admiration of Mama Higurashi more than once. It was just strange to find her mother's magnificence could be conveyed through something as flimsy as a phone connection.

It was hard to argue that a youkai who could become so enamored of a surrogate mother through one phone conversation and still made sure to ask if it was alright if he worked toward one day meeting her could ever have trouble in love. He was considerate and respectful. And Kagome was certain he actually would visit her family one day. He could work toward that goal and achieve it in a great deal less time than would be required for Ginta to become a doctor, so the fact that Hakkaku was a full year younger did not actually make it less likely he'd actually do it.

Determined to ignore the swiftly degenerating phone conversation being conducted beside her, Kagome quietly informed the teller which movie time they would prefer before sliding the proper amount of tender across the counter. She really wasn't looking forward to this movie. Zombie movies had never held any fascination for her given their medical implausibility even before she began to study it. And she had never enjoyed anything that so overused gore for mere shock value.

That wasn't to say she hadn't seen more than her fair share of them. Her brother Souta had hit thirteen and watched nothing but. The difference between then and now though, was that her little brother watched his gore on the family TV and Kagome could ignore it by doing her homework in another room. Or, if no one else was home (Souta hadn't the fortitude to watch one without someone at least in the room with him), she could read something to block it out while the video played. In a theater that was likely to be as packed as this one, she hadn't a valid avenue for distraction and she'd have to turn her phone off.

By the time the teller counted out her change, Kouga's half of her phone conversation had devolved to mere growls, which may have meant something to wolves and possibly dogs, but didn't to her. Either way, he was obviously being rude by the look on Ginta's pale face and the cringe decorating Hakkaku's. "Kouga!" she growled fiercely as she held out her hand for her phone and carefully guided them away from the ticket line to make room for more customers. "I told you to be polite! You know I don't have to see this movie with you! I could just sit out here!"

"But nei-san!" all three wolves protested even as Kouga reluctantly handed the electronic device back to its owner.

"I promised I'd take you to see a movie of your choice, I never promised to watch it with you!" It had been sort of implied, but the promise was contingent on their good behavior. Being rude on a phone that wasn't even theirs certainly classified as bad behavior.

"But you've already bought the tickets!" Kouga protested with arrogant triumph.

"And I may choose not to use mine if I want to. I'm not as enamored of seeing this movie as you are," she countered shortly and snorted at the look he gave her. Apparently he couldn't believe anybody wouldn't want to see walking decay, cannibalism, and violence. But then, when would he bother to think about what anybody else wanted. Kagome had the sneaking suspicion that Kouga had bullied the other two males into seeing this film instead of something else. There were several other movies currently in theaters she'd thought were more their speed, but neither had spoken up against the decision when the time had come. "You were rude to my caller for no reason even after I told you to be polite. You continued to be so despite the fact both Ginta and Hakkaku tried to talk you out of it. You should listen to them you know," Kagome's tone was clipped. There was more than one reason she had termed him a brat. "They at least have manners. And now because of you all three of you will be seeing this movie without me. I'll wait out here. You have forty five minute before your show starts now go play."

Kouga looked befuddled and his compatriots looked like somebody had kicked their puppy, but Kagome remained resolute. Maybe she'd change her mind just before the show, but for now she wasn't going to watch the stupid movie. "Taishou-san," she pressed the phone to her ear and tried to find a quieter spot in the busy lobby. "I'm sorry about that. I was right up to the teller when you called."

"Hn," his deep voice responded in acknowledgment. "This Sesshoumaru is not sure that punishing all three is necessarily the best course of action."

Kagome sighed, "I know, I hate to do that to poor Ginta and Hakkaku, but the brat needs to learn to both listen and exercise the manners I know he was taught. And nothing else seems to work. I'll try to make it up to them later."

"If you have already bought the ticket would it not be foolish to waste it for something so small. The Ookami was rude, but this Sesshoumaru attempted to inform him that it was both disrespectful and demeaning for him to claim you without first consulting your wishes." Kagome wanted to smirk at that. It was funny the way he was trying to impart that specific piece of wisdom. "I have certainly learned that lesson mate there is no reason for you to find it so humorous. Is it not best for experienced elders to teach those younger than themselves?"

"Is that when he resorted to growling in public?" Kagome chose not to comment. It was still amusing as hell given how _he_ had chosen to go about mating her.

"Actually no," he answered. "I could hear your younger sibs trying to convince the brat to modify his behavior and suggested he listen to them as obviously they cared more about you than he did, or at least knew better how to show it."

"Oh dear," she sighed. It was actually all true. She never questioned how much Ginta and Hakkaku cared about her or her good opinion because they went to great pains to show it in every way possible. Kagome did her best to reciprocate but it was hard to work around the road blocks Kouga set up. He was possessive and jealous but luckily not insecure, though he could use a little flattening to fix that in her frustrated opinion. "No wonder he behaved so badly. Kouga is absolutely convinced that nobody could treat me better all the while treating me no better than property. I'm sorry you had to put up with him."

"Do not be," he responded genially. "It is good practice."

"Practice for what?" she wondered aloud.

"Why, for parenthood," his tone was mildly lascivious, but she couldn't scold him for it. Dealing with a brat _was_ good practice for dealing with other, future unruly children one came into contact with. And given inu penchant for breeding and her own far distant desire for family of her own, it was hardly an argument worth having. "But also for dealing with unreasonable business associates." Which was a more immediate use he was liable to find for his newly acquired experience, that is, if Taishou senior ever found cause to install him in such a position as Sesshoumaru had been given leave to continue his studies again.

Ginta and Hakkaku came slinking back in her direction looking thoroughly scolded for something they weren't in trouble for. "Nei-san?" they called timidly and Taishou-san patiently informed her that he would wait.

"What is it?" she responded gently.

"We won these for you," Ginta announced holding out one of the arcade plush prizes.

"We wanted to apologize for Kouga being rude to your friend," Hakkaku added as he held out a bracelet of colorful beads. "We're sorry if he was offended."

Kagome reverently reached out to take their little gifts each one was already a treasure she cherished despite the fact that the plushie was cheaply made and the beads were only colorful plastic. "It's alright, I'm not mad at you and my friend wasn't offended in anyway. To tell you the truth, he knew what to expect of Kouga," she winked at them.

"So you'll see the movie with us?" Hakkaku perked up.

Kagome wrinkled her nose in indecision. "I would, but Kouga's got to learn that what he did was wrong and that his actions have consequences." Hakkaku deflated.

Ginta frowned thoughtfully but acknowledged that Kagome had the right of it. "It's all right. It's just that Hakkaku gets scared sometimes and to be honest we both tend to have nightmares after these kinds of movies."

Kagome blinked, "Then why didn't you ask to see a different movie? There's still time, we could probably exchange the tickets for you to see a different show."

"But Kouga - " Hakkaku began and Kagome cut him off.

"Then he's not doing his job right," she growled. "He's supposed to look out for you not run roughshod over you. If he knows you're scared or get nightmares then he should have let you pick something else. And I never said you all had to see the same movie."

"Then you could exchange your ticket and watch something you wanted to," Hakkaku suggested.

Kagome shook her head, "No, I'm responsible for you guys. If your movies don't start at the same time and don't end at the same time I still have to be out here throughout."

"What if it's just Kouga who's in a different movie?" Ginta asked. "He's older, he could be fine on his own. And we wouldn't have to tell him you were seeing a movie with us."

"Truth is there wasn't anything we wanted see so much as we wanted to see a movie with you," Hakkaku admitted shyly.

"Hmm," Kagome pondered the idea. "I would have to know exactly when his show got out so I could be out here to wait for him otherwise he would figure it out."

"I think one of the movies I wanted to see started just before his did, if you don't mind missing the very beginning of the movie," Ginta suggested.

"We'd fill you in." Hakkaku added eagerly.

"It's been out a few weeks so it shouldn't be too hard for you to find us in the dark," Ginta continued, warming up to their planned intrigue. Normally the duo wouldn't dream of pulling one over on their older pack mate, but Kagome was worth it.

"All right then, lets get back in line," she agreed with a small sigh of relief. Kagome really hadn't liked punishing Ginta and Hakkaku for Kouga's bad behavior, but nothing else seemed to be working. Now, she was punishing him, making him think she was punishing the other two but not; all without him being the wiser.

"Wow, mate, you're teaching them bad things," Taishou-san chuckled through the phone.

"Shush you," Kagome muttered back at him.

"Peace mate," he rumbled further. "I think your influence is only positive. A little duplicity is hardly likely to lead them down a life of crime and it certainly harms far less in this case than honesty would. Besides, I'm rather impressed by their plan. Wolves seldom go against an alpha's choice and bidding, but as you said a proper alpha would not have bullied them into such a situation either. It makes me wish..." he trailed off there.

"You wish you were here so you could teach him better," she finished for him.

"Maybe, but I should probably learn better myself before I attempt to teach anyone else," he muttered.

"Inuyasha again?"

"This one's father actually. The hanyou has found attachment to a human female of – hn – lesser birth than our alpha would prefer. It came to blows this morning in father's office. When this Sesshoumaru attempted to neutralize things both turned on me. Inuyasha with the assumption that I was siding with father and father because I had deigned to interfere at all."

"Are you well?" Kagome well knew that youkai family disputes tended to get physical.

"I am fine, mate. A little sore perhaps but hardly worth mentioning," he was pleased that she had asked in any case, she could tell. "It is just frustrating."

She could only imagine. In a normal inuyoukai pack Sesshoumaru should only have been turned on by one of the two males if either at all. But the Taishou pack, she was fast learning, did not view Sesshoumaru in the way that they should. He was heir and yet remained separate from most of the pack coming and goings. It was rare that he was present for even something like the announcement of intent to court from another male. Kagome could only assume that it was Inuyasha's doing. For all that the brothers weren't close, they tried to keep each other included the way Hiroyuki should have insured things were from the start.

"Well, there's no way I know of to make peace with your alpha, but your brother should be easy. Take him aside in private and inform him that a male such as you who has no idea who or what his mate is could certainly have no problems with a female of any background or species so long as she was true to him and your pack," she ignored the glances from her two youngest sibs standing next to her. "I don't think he'll continue giving you hell once he's thought about it. He's too prone to trying to include you in things to hate you unreasonably."

"This Sesshoumaru will do as you suggest at the first opportunity. It is far too uncomfortable for things to continue as they are." She could hear him shift with a grunt of some of that pain he refused to admit he felt. "Enjoy your movie and intrigue mate. May your brat not find out the trick you play on him."

Kagome chuckled, "May it be so!"


End file.
